Kuwahara T, et al. – This study was performed to investigate the usefulness of shear wave elastography (SW–EG) as a quantitative diagnosis of chronic pancreatitis (CP). The authors revealed that CP could be diagnosed non–invasively and objectively using SW–EG without performing endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS).

• The authors included 85 patients with known or suspected CP who underwent both EUS and SW-EG from October 2012 to July 2016 in this study.
• They categorized patients into 4 stages using Rosemont classification (RC) and into 3 stages using Japan Pancreas Society (JPS) clinical diagnostic criteria 2009 that was EUS-based criteria for the diagnosis of CP.
• They measured SW-EG 5 times in the pancreatic parenchyma.
• They defined the median value as the pancreatic elastic modulus (PEM).

• In this study, PEM was significantly positively correlated with RC stage (rs = 0.54), JPS stage (rs = 0.41), and the number of EUS features (rs = 0.47).
• For the accuracy of SW-EG, area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (consistent with CP and suggestive of CP vs. normal and indeterminate for CP) was 0.77 (sensitivity 77.1%, specificity 64.9%).
• Hyperechoic foci with shadowing and lobularity with honeycombing were independent features related to PEM in a multivariate linear regression analysis including various EUS features related to PEM.