Objectives: To evaluate the utility of ultrasound-based shear wave elastography (SWE) as a noninvasive method to accurately detect and potentially stage the severity of renal allograft fibrosis and assess its user reproducibility.
Methods: In this Institutional Review Board-approved, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act-compliant prospective study, 70 renal transplant recipients underwent an SWE evaluation of their allograft followed directly by biopsy. Two radiologists performed separate SWE measurement acquisitions and the mean, median, and standard deviation of 10 SWE measurements, obtained separately within the cortex and the medulla, were automatically computed.