Comparison of Two-Dimensional Shear Wave Elastography Between Two Different Instruments for Hepatocellular Carcinoma Patients.

Objectives: This study aimed to investigate and compare 2-dimensional shear wave elastography (2D-SWE) measurements and influencing factors among 2 different devices and to evaluate the ability and influencing factors of these measurements to assess liver fibrosis.

Methods: From October 2022 to September 2023, 290 hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients and 30 healthy volunteers were prospectively included. The 2D-SWE measurements were performed using AixPlorer V (SEmean) and APLIO i900 (CEmean). This study compared 2D-SWE measurements between instruments for evaluating the liver fibrosis stage and analyzed the potential influencing factors.

Results: The 2D-SWE measurements obtained by the 2 instruments were significantly different (P < .001), but the differences were significant only for patients with stage F4 liver fibrosis (P < .001) and not for volunteers or patients with stage F0-F3 liver fibrosis (all P > .050). Multivariate linear regression analysis revealed that the factors independently influencing the SEmean were alanine aminotransferase (ALT) (P = .034) and liver fibrosis stage (P < .001), while fibrosis stage (P = .028) was the only factor influencing the CEmean.

Conclusions: Although 2D-SWE from the 2 different instruments was capable of detecting liver fibrosis, it yielded varying results in HCC patients. These discrepancies were predominantly observed in patients with F4 liver fibrosis but not in healthy adults or patients with F0-F3 liver fibrosis. One potential contributing factor to the differences between instruments could be ALT levels.