The usefulness of shear wave velocity in managing nonalcoholic steatohepatitis
Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is manifestation of metabolic syndrome in the liver and is a pandemic over the globe especially in the developed countries, based on a high calorie diet and sedentary life style. As in the other types of chronic hepatitis, collagen fibres continuously accumulate in the liver through the course of NASH toward cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma development. Histological evaluation is a current gold standard for quantification of the fibre deposition. A tiny biopsy specimen, however, leads to considerable variability and is practically difficult to obtain repeatedly from multiple sites. Several surrogate markers have been developed for evaluation of fibre accumulation in a noninvasive way. Unfortunately, however, so far no methodology can satisfy both specificity for the liver and applicability for multiple sites...