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
Published online Jun 28, 2015. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v7.i12.1595
Liver ultrasound elastography: More than staging the disease
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
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
Core Tip
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.