To investigate the value of shear wave elastography (SWE) in the evaluation of liver damage in patients with Budd-Chiari syndrome (BCS).

Sixteen patients with BCS which were all confirmed by interventional therapy or inferior vena cava angiography were enrolled in the study. And fifty healthy volunteers who were confirmed with no liver disease history, no surgical history and no metabolic disease such as diabetes were included in this study. All the subjects underwent conventional ultrasound and no obvious abnormality was detected. All the BCS patients and the volunteers underwent SWE. The elastic graph and the quantitative elastic value, including the average value, the maximum value and the minimum value, were acquired and compared between BCS patients and the volunteers.

The elastic graphs for the healthy volunteers were uniform light blue while the elastic graphs for BCS patients were hybrid images of blue, green and yellow. The average value, the maximum value and the minimum value of BCS patients were (18.1±9.4) kPa, (20.6±10.5) kPa and (15.5±8.5) kPa, which were statistically higher than those of healthy volunteers [(6.2±1.0) kPa, (7.5±1.2) kPa and (4.8±1.1) kPa, t=7.69, 8.94 and 7.83, all P<0.01].

SWE can reflect the liver damage of patients with BCS before the change of the two-dimensional ultrasound. It can play an important role in the accurate selection of treatment and the accurate evaluation of treatment effect and the prognosis.