Grier S, Lim AK, Patel N, Cobbold JF, Thomas HC, Cox IJ, Taylor-Robinson SD. Role of microbubble ultrasound contrast agents in the non-invasive assessment of chronic hepatitis C-related liver disease. World J Gastroenterol 2006; 12(22): 3461-3465 [PMID: 16773702 DOI: 10.3748/wjg.v12.i22.3461]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Dr. Simon Taylor-Robinson, Liver Unit, Department of Medicine A, Imperial College London, 10th Floor, QEQM Building, St Mary’s Hospital Campus, South Wharf Road, London W2 1NY, United Kingdom. s.taylor-robinson@imperial.ac.uk
Article-Type of This Article
Editorial
Open-Access Policy of This Article
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/
World J Gastroenterol. Jun 14, 2006; 12(22): 3461-3465 Published online Jun 14, 2006. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v12.i22.3461
Role of microbubble ultrasound contrast agents in the non-invasive assessment of chronic hepatitis C-related liver disease
Scott Grier, Adrian KP Lim, Nayna Patel, Jeremy FL Cobbold, Howard C Thomas, Isobel J Cox, Simon D Taylor-Robinson
Scott Grier, Nayna Patel, Jeremy FL Cobbold, Howard C Thomas, Simon D Taylor-Robinson, Liver Unit, St Mary’s Hospital Campus, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom
Adrian KP Lim, Isobel J Cox, Department of Imaging Sciences, Hammersmith Hospital Campus, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom
Author contributions: All authors contributed equally to the work.
Supported by the United Kingdom Department of Health, British Medical Research Council, Grant No. G99000178 and the United Kingdom National Health Service Research and Development Initiative
Correspondence to: Dr. Simon Taylor-Robinson, Liver Unit, Department of Medicine A, Imperial College London, 10th Floor, QEQM Building, St Mary’s Hospital Campus, South Wharf Road, London W2 1NY, United Kingdom. s.taylor-robinson@imperial.ac.uk
Telephone: +44-207-8866454 Fax: +44-207-7249369
Received: January 27, 2006 Revised: February 8, 2005 Accepted: February 18, 2006 Published online: June 14, 2006
Abstract
Patients who are chronically infected with the hepatitis C virus often develop chronic liver disease and assessment of the severity of liver injury is required prior to considering viral eradication therapy. This article examines the various assessment methods currently available from gold standard liver biopsy to serological markers and imaging. Ultrasound is one of the most widely used imaging modalities in clinical practice and is already a first-line diagnostic tool for liver disease. Microbubble ultrasound contrast agents allow higher resolution images to be obtained and functional assessments of microvascular change to be carried out. The role of these agents in quantifying the state of hepatic injury is discussed as a viable method of determining the stage and grade of liver disease in patients with hepatitis C. Although currently confined to specialist centres, the availability of microbubble contrast-enhanced ultrasound will inevitably increase in the clinical setting.
