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Challenges and Considerations When Using Shear Wave Elastography to Evaluate the Transplanted Kidney, With Pictorial Review
Author(s) -
Early Heather,
Aguilera Jorge,
Cheang Ellen,
McGahan John
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
journal of ultrasound in medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.574
H-Index - 91
eISSN - 1550-9613
pISSN - 0278-4297
DOI - 10.1002/jum.14217
Subject(s) - medicine , biopsy , elastography , gold standard (test) , radiology , renal biopsy , kidney , fibrosis , intensive care medicine , surgery , pathology , ultrasound
The gold standard in evaluating renal allograft dysfunction has traditionally been renal biopsy. However, not only does biopsy come with inherent risks, the time frame from biopsy to detecting renal dysfunction is often inefficient. It is therefore advantageous to have a noninvasive, low‐cost, time‐saving method, such as shear wave elastography (SWE), to detect fibrosis early, to maximize immunosuppressive care. It is important to consider factors that affect tissue stiffness in the kidney, as well as the challenges incurred when using SWE in this anisotropic organ, in order to select the most appropriate patients for this exam.