UGFF achieves high marks in measuring liver steatosis

Allegretto Amerigo Headshot

Wednesday, December 3 | 9:50 a.m.-10:00 a.m. | W3-SSGI12-3 | Room E451B

Research in this session will highlight how ultrasound-guided fat fraction (UGFF) can quantify hepatic steatosis in patients with chronic liver disease.

Hidekatsu Kuroda, MD, from the Iwate Medical University School of Medicine in Japan, will present findings from his team's study that showed excellent diagnostic performance for steatosis grades 1, 2, and 3.

UGFF estimates hepatic steatosis by integrating three acoustic parameters. These include ultrasound-guided attenuation parameter (UGAP), signal-to-noise ratio, and backscatter coefficient. The prospective observational study included 276 patients with chronic liver disease. The patients underwent same-day UGAP, UGFF, and liver biopsy.

UGFF achieved area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) values of 0.9 for steatosis grade 1, 0.9 for grade 2, and 0.96 for grade 3, respectively. The AUCs were higher than those of UGAP alone (p < 0.01).

The team identified an optimal UGFF cutoff value of 0.64 for detecting grade 1 steatosis. UGFF achieved 80.1% sensitivity, 87.3% specificity, 96.2% positive predictive value, and 52.2% negative predictive value.

Finally, UGFF outperformed UGAP alone in terms of correlating with the grade of histological steatosis (r = 0.83 vs. r = 0.68).

The researchers will also highlight how these findings validate UGFF against histopathological standards and can help with steatotic liver disease management.

Attend this session to learn more.

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