It is a scan similar to a routine abdomen ultrasound which will measure how elastic (or how stiff) your liver is. A healthy liver should be soft and elastic, and if your liver is stiff this is a sign that some damage (fibrosis/inflammation) has occurred.

How is it done?

It is a painless procedure which involves a probe being placed over the top right area of your stomach. Like an abdominal ultrasound, this will also require 4 hours of fasting.

What are the benefits?

Ultrasound Elastography is a quick, painless test that gives immediate results. It does not have any potential complications or risks and is non-invasive, which means that it does not break the skin or enter your body.

The results of the scan can help your doctor find out about the level of damage that affects your liver, and decide what treatment you might need.

It is helpful for measuring the degree of liver damage in people with:

• Viral Hepatitis B & C

• Alcoholic Liver Disease

• Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

• Hepatitis C & HIV Co-Infection

• Haemochromatosis (Iron Overload Disorder)

• Other Liver Diseases

What are the risks?

There are no risks involved. It is painless and not invasive (meaning it’s not carried out inside your body and does not break the skin).

What if I choose not to have Ultrasound Elastography?

If you don’t have the scan it will be more difficult for your doctor to accurately diagnose the condition of your liver and to decide the best treatment for you. This could mean that eventually your liver will become seriously damaged.

Are there any alternatives to this method?

The other ways of checking the damage to your liver, apart from blood tests in an MRI (which is more expensive) and Liver Biopsy, which is an invasive test (using a needle, a small tissue sample is taken from the liver) with risk of many complications. The other problem with liver biopsy is that it samples only a very small tissue of the liver, while elastography along with ultrasound can look at a larger area of the liver.