Clinical utility of two-dimensional shear-wave elastography in monitoring disease course in autoimmune hepatitis-primary biliary cholangitis overlap syndrome

BACKGROUND Autoimmune hepatitis-primary biliary cholangitis(AIH-PBC)overlap syndrome has a worse prognosis than AIH or PBC alone.Therefore,accurately staging liver fibrosis and dynamically monitoring disease progression are essential.AIM To investigate the performance of two-dimensional shear-wave elastography(2DSWE)for noninvasively staging liver fibrosis and assessing the clinical utility of repeated 2D-SWE for monitoring treatment response in AIH-PBC overlap syndrome.METHODS A total of 148 patients diagnosed with AIH-PBC overlap syndrome were retrospectively enrolled.Among them,82 patients had a 2D-SWE follow-up time of more than 1 year.The Scheuer scoring system was used to evaluate stages of hepatic inflammation and liver fibrosis.The performance of 2D-SWE for staging liver fibrosis was evaluated with the liver biopsy.Changes in liver stiffness(LS)measured by 2D-SWE in patients with or without complete biochemical remission were evaluated.RESULTS LS value was strongly correlated with liver fibrosis stage(Spearman r=0.84,P<0.0001).The areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves of LS for diagnosing significant fibrosis(≥S2),severe fibrosis(≥S3),and cirrhosis(S4)were 0.91,0.97,and 0.96,respectively.Patients with complete biochemical remission had a considerable decrease in LS values(P<0.0001).More importantly,the declined LS in patients with S0-S2 was significantly lower than that in patients with S3-S4(P=0.0002).In contrast,patients who failed to achieve biochemical remission had a slight but not significant decrease in LS(P=0.37).CONCLUSION LS measured by 2D-SWE is an accurate and reliable method in assessing liver fibrosis,especially for diagnosing severe fibrosis(≥3)and monitoring treatment response in patients with AIH-PBC overlap syndrome.