SEMI-QUANTITATIVE EVALUATION OF THE HEPATIC AND PANCREATIC STEATOSIS BY GRAY SCALE ECHOGENICITY

• Published in: Ultrasound in medicine & biology Vol. 48; pp. S41 - S42
• Main Authors: Dynnyk, Oleh, Fеdusеnko, Oleksandr, Kobyliak, Nazarii, Makarova, Jeanne
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Inc 2022
• Subjects: computed tomography pancreas; hepatic steatosis; pancreatic steatosis; Radiology; ultrasound; pancreatic steatosis; ultrasound; hepatic steatosis; computed tomography pancreas
• ISSN: 0301-5629; 1879-291X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ultrasmedbio.2022.04.122

It is traditionally believed that the US echogenicity of the parenchyma is increased in hepatic  steatosis (HS) and pancreatic steatosis (PS). Previously, it was proposed to calculate the hepato-renal index (HRI) - the ratio of echogenicity of the liver parenchyma to the cortex of the right kidney. We proposed a new pancreato-lienalis index (PLI) - the ratio of echogenicity of the parenchyma of the pancreatic tail to the spleen. To determine the possibility of semi-quantitative assessment of hepatic and pancreatic steatosis by relative hepato-renal (HRI) and pancreato-lienalis indices (PLI). HRI and PLI were compared in 54 patients with reference data from native multidetector computed tomography (CT) in diffuse liver and pancreatic diseases. The control group included 20 subjects without clinical, instrumental and laboratory signs of liver and pancreatic pathology. Ultrasound was performed by Soneus P7 scanner (Ultrasign, Ukraine) with convex probe 1-5 MHz. Fundamentally, a special baseline was used to position all control volumes to measure the average echogenicity of the organ parenchyma at the same depth from the probe. According to our data, the HRI in healthy subjects should not exceed the threshold of 1.2. The diagnostic efficiency HRI is for HS: sensitivity - 75%, specificity - 33.3% (p <0,05). Normally, in adult subjects, the PLI should not exceed 1.5. The diagnostic efficiency PLI is for PS: sensitivity - 75%, specificity - 33.3% (p <0.001). When PLI used as non-invasive marker for PS detection AUROC was 0.795 (95 % CI 0.642-0.949, p < 0.004). The cut-off value was >1.35, with sensitivity, specificity, PPV and NPV – 91.7 %, 58.3 %, 93.3 %, 52.3 % respectively. Preliminary data suggest that the new relative semi-quantitative US parameter PLI allow more objectively characterize the condition of the pancreatic steatosis  in same way as hepatic steatosis by HRI.