Liver Fibrosis Quantification

Overview

In collaboration with Drs. Manal Abdelmalek and Anna Mae Diehl in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology in the DUMC, we have been investigating the use of acoustic radiation force-induced shear wave velocimetry to non-invasively characterize the stiffness of the liver in patients being evaluated for Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD). Developmental efforts include:

  1. Custom beam sequences to generate appreciable radiation forces in patients with high body mass indices (common in the NAFLD population)
  2. Robust algorithms to reconstruct shear wave speeds based on time-of-flight measurements.

We recently completed a feasibility study exploring the correlations between our non-invasive stiffness reconstructions and patients undergoing liver biopsies for NAFLD evaluation.  This work is done collaboration with Drs. Manal Abdelmalek and Anna Mae Diehl in the Division of Gastroenterology, and Dr. Cynthia Guy in the Department of Pathology.

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liverfbxvsswsplot_0

Related Publications

  • Palmeri ML, Wang MH, Dahl JJ, Frinkley KD, Nightingale KR.  "Quantifying hepatic shear modulus in vivo using acoustic radiation force," Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology, 34(4):546-558, 2008.  (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2362504/?tool=pubmed)
  • Wang MH, Palmeri ML, Guy CD, Yang L, Hedlund LW, Diehl AM, Nightingale KR.  "In vivo quantification of liver stiffness in a rat model of hepatic fibrosis with acoustic radiation force," Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology, 35(10):1709-1721, 2009.  (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19683381)
  • Wang MH, Palmeri ML, Rotemberg VM, Rouze NC, Nightingale KR.  "Improving the robustness of time-of-flight based shear wave speed reconstruction methods using RANSAC in human liver in vivo," Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology, 35(10):802-813, 2010.  (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20381950)
  • Rouze NC, Wang MH, Palmeri ML, Nightingale KR.  "Robust estimation of time-of-flight shear wave speed using a radon sum transformation," IEEE Trans Ultrason Ferrorelectr Freq Control, 57(12):2662-2670, 2010. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21156362)
  • Palmeri ML, Wang MH, Rouze NC, Abdelmalek MF, Guy CD, Moser B, Diehl AM, Nightingale KR. "Noninvasive evaluation of hepatic fibrosis using acoustic radiation force-based shear stiffness in patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease," Journal of Hepataology, in press. (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhep.2010.12.019)

Funding

This research is funded through the National Institutes of Health (R01 EB002132).