Non-invasive techniques for liver fibrosis assessment were developed for adults and recent researches tested their accuracy in children. The only validated elastographic method for non-invasive liver fibrosis evaluation in children is Transient Elastography (TE). The aim of our study was to investigate the feasibility of liver stiffness (LS) measurement in paediatric patients with chronic liver diseases by means of Acoustic Radiation Force Impulse Elastography (ARFI) and 2D-Shear Wave Elastography (2D-SWE), compared to TE as reference method. Material and methods: We enrolled 54 consecutive children and adolescents with different chronic liver diseases. All patients were examined by means of TE, ARFI, and 2D-SWE. All measurements were performed in the right liver lobe, in the same session, in fasting condition. We considered reliable LS elastographic measurements as follows: for TE and ARFI -the median value of ten measurements with a success rate≥60% and an interquartile range<30%, for 2D-SWE -the median value of five measurements. Results: The successful measurement rate for TE was 94.4% (51/54). Taking TE as a reference method, sensitivity of ARFI for detecting fibrosis F1 was 71.42%, for F2-77.77%, for F3-62.5% and for F4-71.42%. Sensitivity of 2D-SWE for detecting F1 was 92.85%, for F2-83.33%, for F3-87.5% and for F4-85.71%. We found significant correlations between TE and 2D-SWE on the entire lot (Kappa correlation factor=0.843, p=0.001). Analyzing the subgroup with SR=60%-70%, we did not find significant correlation between TE and ARFI (Kappa correlation factor=0.172, p=0.452). Assessing the subgroup with SR>70%, we found a significant correlation between TE and ARFI (Kappa correlation factor=0.761, p=0.001). Conclusions: Overall, 2D-SWE correlate better with TE compared to ARFI in children. Excluding patients with less satisfactory technical parameters, we obtained significant correlations between all three methods. Both SWE and ARFI are non-invasive techniques feasible of performing on paediatric patients along with TE.
Introduction: Ulcerative colitis is a chronic intestinal inflammation, part of inflammatory bowel disease, which also includes Crohn’s disease. Both have extraintestinal manifestations, but those that tend to occur more commonly with ulcerative colitis include chronic active hepatitis, pyoderma gangrenosum and ankylosing spondylitis. Many individuals present with overlapping non-diagnostic features of more than one of these conditions that is referred to in the literature as autoimmune overlap syndrome. Sclerosing cholangitis associated with IBD is often referred to as overlap syndrome.Material and methods: We present the case of a 15-year-old female, with an association between ulcerative colitis, primitive sclerosing cholalangitis and autoimmune hepatitis. She was admitted for: diarrheic bloody stools, abdominal pain, diminished appetite, headache and aphthous stomatitis. Blood sample analysis revealed: hypochromic anemia, iron deficiency, high levels of transaminase, abnormal protein electrophoresis, positive anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies and anti-smooth muscle antibodies, high level of faecal calprotectin, modified biliary tract on imaging of digestive system and suggestive modifications of colic mucosa for ulcerative colitis. We administered treatment with Arginine Chloride 5%, Sorbitol 10%, Aspartic acid, Vitamin B6, Ursodeoxycholic acid, 5-aminosalicylic acid.Results: With the administered therapy the evolution was good, macroscopic blood disappeared from stools, and tests for blood trace in stool were also negative.Conclusions: The patient had simultaneous onset of diarrhea with bloody stools and extraintestinal manifestations. Immunological markers didn’t fully match any of the associated diseases, so we concluded that there was an overlap syndrome. Budesonide was effective on both hepatic and intestinal disease.
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