Can Viscoelasticity Measurements Obtained Through Shear-Wave US Elastography be used to Monitor Hepatic Ischemia-Reperfusion Injury and Treatment Response? An Animal Study

This study aimed to investigate whether viscoelasticity measurements can be used to quantitatively analyze and monitor therapy response in hepatic ischemia-reperfusion injury (HIRI). All Animals were divided into three groups: a sham operation group (n = 12), an ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI) group (n = 12) and an andrographolide pre-treatment group (n = 6). To assess the feasibility of using shear-wave velocity (SWV) and shear-wave dispersion (SWD), shear-wave ultrasound elastography was applied onto IRI rats after 4 and 24 h of reperfusion or sham operation (each time point subgroup n = 6). For the verification experiments, six additional rats received andrographolide injection 2 h before IRI and were examined 24 h after reperfusion. The rats were sacrificed for biochemical and histopathological analyses after ultrasound scanning was performed. Compared with the sham group, the IRI group exhibited significantly higher SWD after both 4 and 24 h of reperfusion（10.69 ± 0.69 vs. 15.20 ± 3.23 and 9.01 ± 0.46 vs. 19.35 ± 0.86; p < 0.05). A positive correlation was found between SWD values and Suzuki's score (r = 0.621; p < 0.05). No correlation was found between SWV and Suzuki's score (r = 0.283; p > 0.05), although significant differences were found between the two groups after 24 h of reperfusion. Andrographolide treatment resulted in a significantly decreased SWD (15.24 ± 0.45 vs. 19.35 ± 0.86; p < 0.05), whereas SWV showed no statistically significant difference. This study demonstrated the potential of using viscoelasticity measurements for the diagnosis and therapeutic monitoring of HIRI, and that the use of SWD was significantly more advantageous than SWV.