Hepatic Steatosis is the most common liver disease, it affects one third of global population. It is an important risk factor for liver, methabolic and cardiovascular disease. Un diagnosed steatosis can lead to cirrhosis and hepatocarcinoma. The golden standards for accurate diagnosis are agobiopsy and magnetic resonance proton density fat fraction. This techniques are expensive and/or invasive. In the last 10 years ultrasound examination established as an economic and non-invasive alternative but it has some big disadvantages: it is imprecise and not accurate, it is affected by human variability in execution of exam and in evaluation and moreover the human eye cannot accurately detect fat below 19% (wich is considerated a severe grade of steatosis). Scientific and clinical communities need an economic and non-invasive tool that can be used for mass-screening purposes and a tool for follow up of patient.
USe (Ultrasound Steatosis evaluator) is an AI aided tool that is able analyze a single US image and evaluate accurately the presence of fat above 7% in liver. We’ve published on European Journal of Internal Medicine https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejim.2024.03.004 the results of a clinical trial. We compared our solution to the Magnetic Resonance Proton Density Fat Frction (wich is considered golden standard) and obtained very good results. We applied for patent in collaboration with University of Bari Aldo Moro. At the moment USe is the unique solution that can evaluate precisely and automatically the hepatorenal index.
Patent requested: PCT/IB2023/055793 6 June 2023
Main advantages of our solutions are:
- speed (only 20 sec for the evaluation),
- cost (it’s the cheapest accurate solution),
- automation (fully automated).
With our solution is possible to do mass screening for liver steatosis and follow up of patient (because of non invasitivity and low cost).
