- How the exam is done
- What diseases do you evaluate
- When the result can go wrong
- Advantages over biopsy
Liver elastography is an exam used to assess liver fibrosis, which reflects health and liver damage caused by chronic diseases in this organ, such as hepatitis, cirrhosis and the presence of fat.
This test is quick, does not cause pain and does not need needles or cuts, and can also be used to diagnose diseases, replacing the biopsy in many cases.
However, this technology was only incorporated into the SUS in October 2015, which is why it is still rare to have the exam in the public health network, but it is possible to find it more easily in private clinics, with prices that vary around 1000 reais.
How the exam is done
Liver elastography lasts an average of 5 to 10 minutes, requiring no preparation or fasting before the procedure. It can be called transient ultrasound or ARFI, depending on the device being used.
The exam is similar to that of ultrasonography, in which the patient lies on his back and with his shirt raised to expose the abdomen, where the doctor places the lubricating gel before passing the probe that will generate images on the device's screen, from the which the diagnosis and disease progression will be assessed.
What diseases do you evaluate
Liver elastography can be used to assess the following health problems:
- Hepatitis; Liver fat; Cirrhosis; Primary sclerosing cholangitis; Hemochromatosis; Wilson's disease.
In addition to being used to diagnose and identify the severity of these diseases, this test can also be used to assess the success of treatment, as it can assess the improvement or worsening of liver tissue. See the symptoms of fatty liver, which is fat in the liver.
When the result can go wrong
Only a small portion of the results of elastography tests may be unreliable, a problem that occurs mainly in cases of overweight, obesity and old age of the patient.
In addition, the exam can also fail when done on people with a BMI of less than 19 kg / m2 or when the examiner has no experience in taking the exam.
Advantages over biopsy
As it is a painless exam and does not need preparation, elastography does not pose risks to the patient, unlike what can happen during liver biopsy, in which the patient has to be hospitalized so that a small piece of the organ is removed for analyze.
Biopsy usually causes pain at the procedure site and hematoma in the belly, and in rarer cases it can also cause complications such as bleeding and pneumothorax. Thus, the ideal is to talk to the doctor to assess which is the best test to identify and monitor the disease in question. See how is the treatment for fat in the liver and the degrees of severity of this disease.
Meet Berardinelli-Seipe Syndrome, a disease that decreases the amount of fat in the body, but increases the liver and causes bloated tummy and diabetes.
