The methods handbook includes a scoring system for qualitative and quantitative criteria of contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) in diffuse liver diseases. Clinical cases of multiparametric ultrasound are given: B-mode + color Doppler techniques of liver vessels + strain elastography (SE) and shear wave elastography (2DSWE) + qualitative and quantitative criteria of CEUS in various nosological forms of diffuse liver diseases.
Currently, there is an increase in the number of patients with diffuse liver diseases. At the same time, one of the main problems of gastroenterology is the terminal stage of liver damage-cirrhosis [12, 17, 21, 28]. The primary diagnostic method of the liver diseases is morphological verification, i.e. the biopsy, but this method is associated with a large number of complications, so the search for new methods of early, non-invasive liver pathology diagnosis is constantly being conducted [7, 14, 17, 20].
One of these methods is contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS), which uses microbubble contrast agents that change the acoustic properties of blood, primarily the absorption and reflection of ultrasound waves [1-3, 6, 23]. CEUS also has such advantages as the ability to assess pathology in real time, good tolerability and absence of complications, including the development of post-contrast acute kidney injury, which is a characteristic side effect to the administration of iodine-containing and gadolinium contrast agents [1-6, 23, 24]. The size of the microbubbles does not exceed the size of red blood cells, which makes it possible to visualize the capillaries of the microcirculatory bed and assess the state of the liver comprehensively, and this is so important for patients with diffuse liver diseases, because the process of structural changes in different parts of the liver proceeds unevenly [8, 15, 18, 19, 24].
Contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) in diffuse liver diseases : Methods handbook