Chronic Liver Diseases and Liver Cancer: State-of-the Art Progress in 2016

SVR rate (81.3%) at 12 weeks than the non-aged group (<75 years) (96.0%). They concluded that this combination therapy of sofosbuvir plus RBV is tolerable and beneficial not only in younger (<75) patients but also in elderly (>75) patients. Wu et al. [4] evaluated the two-dimensional shear wave elastography (2D SWE) as compared with real-time tissue elastography (RTE) for assessing liver fibrosis in patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB). They concluded that 2D SWE obtained by Aixplorer US system (SuperSonic Imaging) was more accurate than RTE obtained by Ascendus (Hitachi) in the assessment of significant fibrosis and cirrhosis in patients with CHB. However, the measurement values and diagnostic performance obtained by 2D SWE are more affected by the inflammation fluctuations. Yada et al. [5] evaluated the prospective risk analysis of HCC in patients with CHC by ultrasound strain elastography. Respective cumulative liver cancer incidence rates at 5 years in patients whose liver fibrosis index (LFI) determined by RTE of <2.0, 2–2.8 and >2.8 were 0%, 19.9 and 31.4% (p = 0.011) respectively. They concluded that measurement of LFI by strain imaging can successfully predict liver cancer risk in patients with chronic HCV infection. Takita et al. [6] reported the epock-making therapy for polycystic liver disease, monoethanolamine oleate (EO) sclerotherapy. They concluded that EO infusion therapy achieves a fairly high treatment response in the volume reduction (99%) and sustained shrinkage over long-term follow-up. Therefore, this is a breakthrough technique in The 13th Japan-Korea Liver Symposium was held in Kyoto on May 25–26, 2016, in conjunction with the 89th annual meeting of the Japan Society of Ultrasonics in Medicine, 12th Congress of Asian Federation of Societies for Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology, and 8th Congress of Asian Conference on Ultrasound Contrast Imaging. Hagiwara et al. [1] evaluated the efficacy of direct-acting antiviral drugs for asunaprevir (ASV) and daclatasvir (DCV) for hepatitis C virus (HCV). The authors found that ASV/DCV combination therapy achieved sustained viral response (SVR) at 24 weeks in 106 of 120 (88%) patients with HCV. They also stated that surveillance of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is very important since risk of HCC development in patients who achieved SVR still exists. Sugimoto et al. [2] evaluated the efficacy and safety of sofosbuvir plus rivavirin treatment for patients with chronic hepatitis C (CHC) genotype 2. They reported that all patients (17/17) under sofosbuvir plus rivavirin treatment achieved end-of-treatment response. They also found that this combination therapy had an acceptable safety profile and resulted in no discontinuation of the treatment, irrespective of age or the effect of the polymorphisms of the inosine triphosphatase gene. Nishida et al. [3] also evaluated the safety, tolerability and efficacy of sofosbuvir plus rivavirin therapy in elderly patients infected with HCV genotype 2. They found that 37 of 41 patients achieved SVR 12 (90.2%). They reported that the aged group (>75 years) showed a lower