Department of Clinical, Surgical, Diagnostic and Pediatric Sciences, Medical School University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy.
Hepatology Dept., University Clinic for Visceral Surgery and Medicine, Inselspital, University Hospital of Bern, University of Bern, Switzerland.
Ultrasound Med Biol. 2021 Oct;47(10):2803-2820. doi: 10.1016/j.ultrasmedbio.2021.06.002. Epub 2021 Jul 18.
New ultrasound methods that can be used to quantitatively assess liver fat content have recently been developed. These quantitative ultrasound (QUS) methods are based on the analysis of radiofrequency echoes detected by the transducer, allowing calculation of parameters for quantifying the fat in the liver. In this position paper, after a section dedicated to the importance of quantifying liver steatosis in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and another section dedicated to the assessment of liver fat with magnetic resonance, the current clinical studies performed using QUS are summarized. These new methods include spectral-based techniques and techniques based on envelope statistics. The spectral-based techniques that have been used in clinical studies are those estimating the attenuation coefficient and those estimating the backscatter coefficient. Clinical studies that have used tools based on the envelope statistics of the backscattered ultrasound are those performed by using the acoustic structure quantification or other parameters derived from it, such as the normalized local variance, and that performed by estimating the speed of sound. Experts' opinions are reported.
最近已经开发出了一些新的超声方法，可以用于定量评估肝脂肪含量。这些定量超声（QUS）方法基于对换能器检测到的射频回波的分析，允许计算用于定量肝脏脂肪的参数。在这份立场文件中，在专门讨论定量非酒精性脂肪性肝病患者肝脂肪变性的重要性的部分和专门讨论磁共振评估肝脂肪的部分之后，总结了目前使用 QUS 进行的临床研究。这些新方法包括基于频谱的技术和基于包络统计的技术。在临床研究中使用的基于频谱的技术是那些估计衰减系数和那些估计反向散射系数的技术。基于反向散射超声包络统计的工具在临床研究中的应用包括使用声学结构量化或从中衍生的其他参数，如归一化局部方差，以及通过估计声速来进行的研究。报告了专家的意见。
