| Summary: | Purpose To evaluate the feasibility of texture analysis of gray-scale ultrasound (US) images for
staging of hepatic fibrosis.
Materials and Methods Altogether, 167 patients who had undergone routine US and laboratory
tests for a fibrosis-4 (FIB-4) index were included. Texture parameters were measured using a
dedicated in-house software. Regions of interest were placed in five different segments (3, 5, 6,
7, 8) for each patient. The FIB-4 index was used as the reference standard for hepatic fibrosis
grade. Comparisons of the texture parameters between different fibrosis groups were performed
with the Student’s t-test or Mann-Whitney U-test. Diagnostic performance was evaluated
by receiver operating curve analysis.
Results The study population comprised of patients with no fibrosis (FIB-4 < 1.45, n = 50), mild
fibrosis (1.45 ≤ FIB-4 ≤ 2.35, n = 37), moderate fibrosis (2.35 < FIB-4 ≤ 3.25, n = 27), and severe
fibrosis (FIB-4 > 3.25, n = 53). Skewness in hepatic segment 5 showed a difference between patients
with no fibrosis and mild fibrosis (0.2392 ± 0.3361, 0.4134 ± 0.3004, respectively, p =
0.0109). The area under the curve of skewness for discriminating patients with no fibrosis from
those with mild fibrosis was 0.660 (95% confidence interval, 0.551–0.758), with an estimated accuracy,
sensitivity, specificity of 64%, 87%, 48%, respectively.
Conclusion A significant difference was observed regarding skewness in segment 5 between
patients with no fibrosis and patients with mild fibrosis.
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