Texture Analysis of Gray-Scale Ultrasound Images for Staging of Hepatic Fibrosis

Eun Joo Park, Seung Ho Kim, Sang Joon Park, Tae Wook Baek
2020 Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology  
To evaluate the feasibility of texture analysis of gray-scale ultrasound (US) images for staging of hepatic fibrosis. 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
more » ... 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. 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. A significant difference was observed regarding skewness in segment 5 between patients with no fibrosis and patients with mild fibrosis.
doi:10.3348/jksr.2019.0185 pmid:36237456 pmcid:PMC9432409 fatcat:5zulp5lfxbdnfpimcq6z4sukfm