Catinean Adrian, Balan Gheorghe G, Mezei Anita, Botan Emil-Claudiu, Mitre Andrei-Otto, Motocu Radu, Graur Florin, Eniu Dan-Tudor, Neag Maria-Adriana
Department of Gastroenterology, Emergency Clinical County Hospital, Iuliu Hatieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 400006 Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
University of Medicine and Pharmacy "Grigore T. Popa" Iasi, 700115 Iasi, Romania.
Diagnostics (Basel). 2021 Jun 29;11(7):1180. doi: 10.3390/diagnostics11071180.
Endorectal ultrasound applications in the evaluation of rectal tumors could be a useful tool in achieving proper staging of rectal cancer. The purpose of this study was to compare the efficacy of rectal tumor staging by flexible endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) with real-time elastography (RTE) using the gold standard post-surgery histological analysis of the resected tissue as the control. The second aim of our research was to establish cutoff values for the EUS-RTE strain ratio corresponding to stages by independently comparing the stiffness values obtained with histology and EUS-RTE staging in order to minimize observation bias. We evaluated the records of 130 patients with a rectal tumor confirmed by biopsy. EUS was used in 70 patients, EUS-RTE-in the other 60. We found no statistically significant differences in staging accuracy when comparing EUS to EUS-RTE. Through a correspondence method between staging assessment and the EUS-RTE stain ratio, we identified cutoff intervals for T2, T3, and T4 staging that were nonoverlapping and proved to be statistically significant in terms of EUS-RTE values (significantly different ascending values from one interval to the other). We found that EUS-RTE offers slightly better, although not statistically significant sensitivity and specificity for T and N stage predictions compared to 2D EUS. Our results showed that EUS-RTE offers slightly higher sensitivity and specificity compared to EUS. Reliable cutoff intervals were found for strain rate elastography, previously available only for shear wave elastography (SWE) which is currently unavailable on any EUS system. Thus, these commonly available EUS-RTE systems can serve as a complementary tool in the staging of rectal tumors.
直肠内超声在评估直肠肿瘤中的应用可能是实现直肠癌准确分期的有用工具。本研究的目的是比较柔性内镜超声(EUS)联合实时弹性成像(RTE)对直肠肿瘤进行分期的效果,并以手术切除组织的金标准术后组织学分析作为对照。我们研究的第二个目的是通过独立比较组织学和EUS-RTE分期获得的硬度值,确定与各分期相对应的EUS-RTE应变率临界值,以尽量减少观察偏差。我们评估了130例经活检确诊为直肠肿瘤患者的记录。70例患者使用了EUS,另外60例使用了EUS-RTE。比较EUS和EUS-RTE时,我们发现分期准确性在统计学上没有显著差异。通过分期评估与EUS-RTE染色率之间的对应方法,我们确定了T2、T3和T4分期的临界区间,这些区间不重叠,并且在EUS-RTE值方面被证明具有统计学意义(从一个区间到另一个区间的上升值有显著差异)。我们发现,与二维EUS相比,EUS-RTE对T和N分期预测的敏感性和特异性略高,尽管在统计学上不显著。我们的结果表明,与EUS相比,EUS-RTE的敏感性和特异性略高。我们发现了应变率弹性成像的可靠临界区间,此前仅剪切波弹性成像(SWE)有此区间,而目前任何EUS系统均无法进行SWE检查。因此,这些常用的EUS-RTE系统可作为直肠肿瘤分期的辅助工具。