Özet:

Objective: The reversible metabolic disorder called fatty liver is an acquired metabolic disorder that results in the collection of triglycerides in hepatocytes. When it turns into chronic, lobular inflammation occurs and the disease can derive to steatohepatitis, fibrosis, cirrhosis, portal hypertension, liver failure, and hepatocellular carcinoma. Chronic diseases of the liver is one of the important health problems today. This prospective study evaluates the contribution of point shearwave elastography (pSWE) to the diagnosis of hepatic steatosis, to determine the threshold value according to steatosis degrees. Methods: A total of 140 patients who were referred to the radiology department for abdominal ultrasonography (USG) from the internal medicine outpatient clinic due to reasons such as cholesterol-triglyceride elevation, liver enzyme elevation, right upper quadrant pain, fatigue, weakness, hepatomegaly, between January-2019 and April-2020 were included in the study. US elastography was examined. Ten consecutive measurements were carried out, and the resulting median values in kPa were recorded. The interquartile range/median values below 30% were considered in the confidence interval. Results: The ages of patients were between 32 and 79 (mean age: 55.2±9.2). Of the patients, 54 were male (38%) and 86 were female (62%). The cut-off pSWE values according to the degree of steatosis were (researcher 1/researcher 2) <101.05/<89, <18.2/<22.2 and <5.85/<6.55 respectively for grade 1,2 and 3 steatosis. Conclusion: This prospective study determines the threshold values for pSWE method considering the steatosis grades in the liver steatosis using the Esaote MyLab9 ultrasound machine and pSWE technique. Our study showed that the pSWE is a reproducible, noninvasive, and easily accessible method for evaluating fatty liver disease. But, more studies are needed, including histopathological verifications.

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