Sonography of diffuse benign liver disease: Accuracy of pattern recognition and grading

L. Needleman, A. B. Kurtz, M. D. Rifkin, H. S. Cooper, M. E. Pasto, B. B. Goldberg

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

189 Scopus citations

Abstract

Sonograms of 110 patients were compared to recently performed liver biopsies for evaluation of the accuracy of sonography in predicting the type (pattern) of pathology and its grade of severity (mild, moderate, or severe) in a wide variety of diffuse liver processes. There are two distinct, abnormal sonographic patterns: (1) the fatty-fibrotic pattern seen primarily with cirrhosis, chronic hepatitis, and/or fatty infiltration, and (2) the centrilobular pattern seen primarily with acute hepatitis. Sonography was 88% accurate in assigning the correct pattern to the corresponding pathology (sensitivity 89%, specificity 86%, p < 0.001). The degree of accuracy was dependent on the grade of pathologic severity, with mild disease offering the greatest difficulty; moderate and severe diseases were accurately detected and placed in the correct pattern in all cases. Sonographic grading of the severity of the disease was far less precise (63% overall). This study showed that sonography can distinguish between two abnormal sonographic patterns of diffuse benign liver disease as well as between normal and abnormal patterns.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1011-1015
Number of pages5
JournalAmerican Journal of Roentgenology
Volume146
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - 1986

Keywords

  • Biopsy
  • Diagnostic Errors
  • Fatty Liver/pathology
  • Hepatitis/pathology
  • Humans
  • Liver Diseases/pathology
  • Pattern Recognition, Automated
  • Retrospective Studies
  • Ultrasonography

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