Introduction:

Cirrhosis, understood as a dynamic and reversible process, is the final result of chronically progressive liver diseases of various etiologies. Non-invasive methods based on ultrasound have gradually become useful diagnostic tools for studying liver diseases. Real-time supersonic shearwave elastography (SSWE) study of these patients has recently been introduced to Colombia.

Objective:

The objective of this study was to evaluate real-time SSWE in patients with cirrhosis at a center for the treatment of liver and digestive diseases in Bogotá.

Materials and Methods:

This is a retrospective pilot study of a cohort of cirrhotic patients with diagnoses confirmed by liver biopsies, imaging, clinical indicators or a combination of these.

Results:

Sixty-five patients who had been diagnosed with cirrhosis were included in this study. The median age was 58 years, 61.5% were women, and 38.5% were men. We found that median hepatic stiffness was 16.6 kilopascals (kPs), the interquartile range was 13.9 -19.5, the minimum value was 12, and the maximum value was 30.5. There were no statistically significant differences between women and men, within groups and with and without biopsies (p = 0.64 and p = 0.26 respectively).

Conclusions:

Hepatic rigidity measurements for cirrhotic patients analyzed in this pilot study were within the ranges reported in initial international tests, so this non-invasive test should be considered for patients suspected of having cirrhosis as a way to avoid complications of liver biopsies.

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