Clinical Pilot Study Of Ultrasound Shear Wave Elastography In Meniscal

Objective To assess preliminary the feasibility of Real-time Shear wave elastography(SWE)in meniscus,and to initially explore the clinical application value of SWE in meniscal degeneration.Methods 20 patients which Includes 23 knees were enrolled with degeneration group,who are diagnosed as medial meniscus anterior horn degenerative changes(grade 1 or 2)by MRI examination in the hospital’s department of Radiology from August 2018 to January 2019.Another 30 subjects whoes medial meniscus anterior horn of 60 knees were normal in MRI examination were collected in the control group,and Record general information of all subjects.By using SWE technique,SWE imaging was performed on medial meniscus in all subjects,and the mean shear modulus value(Emean)was obtained.The t-test was used to compare the Emean’s difference within the group and between the group.Pearson and Spearman correlation coefficients were used to analyze whether the control group’s Emean of meniscu was correlated with those general information.The subject characteristic working curve(ROC)was drawed to obtain the best cutoff value for Emean to diagnosis meniscus degeneration.Results There were no statistical differences in Emean between different sides and genders in the control group.There was no correlation between the Emean values of the control group meniscus and there BMI,age,and gender.The Emean values of the meniscus of the degenerative group was statistically different from those of the control group’s left or right meniscus.The cutoff value,the area under ROC,Youden index,sensitivity,specificity for Emean diagnosing the meniscus degeneration were 30.2KPa,0.846、0.59、82.6%、76.7%.Conclusions SWE technology may be a feasible method to evaluate the elastic characteristics of meniscus,and it is expected to become a additional diagnostic information for ultrasound on meniscus degeneration.