Gastroenterologie
a hepatologie

Methods for non-invasive determination of advancement of liver fibrosis

Michal Koula¹, Martina Hrůzová¹, Dušan Harmáček¹, Petr Hříbek¹, Alena Černá², Dominika Dvořáková¹, Petr Urbánek ^{Orcid.org  3}

+ Affiliation
¹ Interní klinika 1. LF UK a ÚVN Praha
² Centrum péče o zažívací trakt, Vítkovická nemocnice a. s., Ostrava
³ Interní klinika 1. LF UK a ÚVN – VFN Praha

Summary

Prognosis, care, and treatment of chronic liver diseases greatly depend on the degree and rate of progression of hepatic fibrosis. For many years, histological evaluation has been the gold standard for measuring the advancement of liver fibrosis. Liver biopsy is an invasive method, the serial repetition of which in a single patient raises a number of problematic issues, including ethical ones. Therefore, much effort has been devoted to finding a non-invasive procedure. A very promising method in recent years involves the evaluation of liver elasticity. These elastography-based methods use shear waves propagating through hepatic tissues to measure liver elasticity. The principle of elastography itself has been known for many decades, but has only been applied in the last decade in the development of devices capable of providing a diagnosis in hepatology.

Keywords

Fibroscan®, cirrhosis, elastography, liver fibrosis, shear-waves

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