Data from: Diagnostic accuracy of point shear wave elastography and transient elastography for staging hepatic fibrosis in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease: a meta-analysis

Objective: This study aimed to assess the accuracy of staging liver fibrosis in Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease Patients (NAFLD) via Point shear wave Elastography (pSWE) and Transient Elastography (TE). Setting: Relevant records concerning NAFLD were retrieved from Pubmed, Embase, Web of Science, and the China National Knowledge Infrastructure databases up to 20th of December, 2017. A bivariate mixed-effects model was conducted to combine sensitivity (SE), specificity (SP), positive likelihood ratio (LR+), negative likelihood ratio (LR-) and Area Under Summary Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve (AUC) between TE and pSWE. A sensitivity analysis was implemented to explore the source of heterogeneity. Participants: Patients with NAFLD who had a liver stiffness measurement using pSWE and TE before liver biopsy were enrolled according to the following criteria : 2×2 contingency tables can be calculated via the reported numbers of cases, sensitivity and specificity and were excluded according to the following criteria: with histories of other hepatic damage, such as chronic hepatitis C, concurrent active hepatitis B infection, autoimmune hepatitis, suspicious drug usage, and alcohol abuse. Results: Nine pSWE studies comprising a total 982 of patients and eleven TE studies comprising a total of 1753 patients were included. For detection of significant fibrosis, advanced fibrosis and cirrhosis, the summary AUC were 0.86 (95% CI: 0.83–0.89), 0.94 (95% CI: 0.91–0.95) and 0.95 (95% CI: 0.93–0.97) for pSWE and the summary AUC was 0.85 (95% CI: 0.82–0.88), 0.92 (95% CI: 0.89–0.94) and 0.94 (95% CI: 0.93–0.97) for TE, respectively. The proportion of failure measurement was over tenfold as common with TE using an M probe compared to pSWE Conclusion: pSWE and TE, providing precise non-invasive staging of liver fibrosis in NAFLD, are promising techniques, particularly for advanced fibrosis and cirrhosis.