METHOD FOR OBJECTIVE, NONINVASIVE STAGING OF DIFFUSE LIVER DISEASE FROM ULTRASOUND SHEAR-WAVE ELASTOGRAPHY

摘要

Systems and methods are provided for objective, noninvasive staging of diffuse liver disease, and other diseases, from ultrasound shear wave elastography ("SWE"). A liver fibrosis staging SWE image analysis algorithm or toolkit may be used to detect the presence of liver disease and may integrate demographic, clinical, laboratory, conventional sonographic, SWE data, and the like into a combined disease diagnosis decision support model, such as for the diagnosis of high risk liver disease. Advanced image processing methods may be used to extract fibrosis pattern information from SWE and ultrasound (US) image data and this can be used to augment stiffness-based liver fibrosis staging methods.