Thoracic ultrasound shear wave elastography in interstitial lung disease: an explorative pilot study

<bold>Background:</bold> Thoracic ultrasound shear wave elastography (SWE) is based on measuring the velocity of shear waves’ propagation in multiple lung zones generated by a localized radiation force. The velocity of the ultrasound waves increases with tissue stiffness as consequence of reduced elastic properties, which appears in e.g., fibrotic interstitial lung disease (fILD). This explorative study hypothesized that SWE is able to distinguish fILD from non-fibrotic ILD (nfILD). <bold>Methods:</bold> As part of routine follow-up at South Danish Center for ILD, ILD patients were offered supplemental performance of SWE in 4 zones corresponding to left (L) and right (R) apical anterior (AA_L/R) and basal posterior (BS_L/R) zones using a linear ultrasound probe (6-15MHz). SWE was measured in meters per second (m/s). <bold>Results:</bold> Sixteen patients accepted participation (13 men (81%), mean age of 61.3 years (SD ± 20.6)) with an equally distributed diagnosis of fILD (8 (50%)) and nfILD (8 (50%)), respectively. Means (SD) and medians (IQR) for SWE corresponding to AA_L, AA_R, BS_L, and BS_R are presented in Table 1. No statistically significant differences were observed when comparing SWE values from the 4 zones between fILD and nfILD. <bold>Conclusion:</bold> Based on available literature SWE seems to be a feasible supplementary and clinical tool to separate fILD from nfILD. However, due to a low number of patients our study hypothesis could not confirm this. <fig><object-id>erj;64/suppl_68/PA3444/F1</object-id><object-id>F1</object-id><object-id>F1</object-id><graphic></graphic></fig>