Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. Jun 28, 2015; 7(12): 1595-1600
Published online Jun 28, 2015. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v7.i12.1595
Liver ultrasound elastography: More than staging the disease
George S Gherlan
George S Gherlan, “Dr. Victor Babes” Center for Diagnostics and Treatment, 030303 Bucharest, Romania
Author contributions: Gherlan GS solely contributed to this manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest: None to declare.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: George S Gherlan, MD, PhD, “Dr. Victor Babes” Center for Diagnostics and Treatment, 281 Mihai Bravu Street, 030303 Bucharest, Romania. gherlanus@gmail.com
Telephone: +40-21-3179503 Fax: +40-21-3179502
Received: January 7, 2015
Peer-review started: January 8, 2015
First decision: February 7, 2015
Revised: February 22, 2015
Accepted: April 16, 2015
Article in press: May 6, 2015
Published online: June 28, 2015
Abstract

Ultrasound elastography is perhaps the most important breakthrough in the evolution of ultrasonography in the last 15 years. Since transient elastography was introduced, many other methods have been developed and became more and more widely available. The value of ultrasound elastography in staging a chronic liver disease has been established by numerous studies. There have been many studies that have shown that using liver elastography it is possible to predict the presence of the complications of cirrhosis: portal hypertension, presence of esophageal varices (and even their risk of bleeding) and hepatocellular carcinoma. It has been shown that liver elastography can predict the progression of liver fibrosis and also the survival (hepatic events - free) of the patients with chronic liver diseases. These are the real quests of the clinicians, this is the ultimate scope of any medical investigation - to predict the outcome of a patient and to help making therapeutic decisions. I brought together only a small amount of the data that has already been written on this subject to support my affirmation that liver ultrasound elastography is more than a tool for staging the liver disease, but it is also comparable to a crystal ball which in the hands of a skilled clinician can reveal the future of the patient and can help to improve this future.

Keywords: Liver ultrasound elastography, Transient elastography, Fibrosis, Hepatitis, Survival, Cirrhosis

Core tip: In this editorial I brought together data from the literature in the support of the affirmation that liver ultrasound elastography is more than a tool for staging the disease, that it can also be used to predict the presence of the complications of cirrhosis: portal hypertension, presence of esophageal varices (and even their risk of bleeding), ascites and hepatocellular carcinoma. Studies shown that liver elastography can predict the progression of liver fibrosis and also the survival (hepatic events - free) of the patients with chronic liver diseases, being therefore a helpful tool in the hands of a skilled clinician.