The role of spleen stiffness using ARFI in predicting esophageal varices in patients with Hepatitis B and C virus-related cirrhosis

Abstract

Introduction. Current guidelines recommend that all patients with cirrhosis undergo upper gastrointestinal endoscopy (UGE) screening for esophageal varices (EV). Unfortunately, UGE has a lot of disadvantages, consequently various non-invasive methods of diagnosing EV have been proposed. We evaluated if spleen stiffness (SS) measured by Acoustic Radiation Force Impulse (ARFI) is a viable technique in diagnosing EV.

Keywords

• acoustic radiation force impulse
• cirrhosis
• esophageal varices
• spleen stiffness
• liver stiffness