Diagnostic accuracy of contrast-enhanced ultrasound for hepatic alveolar echinococcosis

Background: To evaluate the accuracy of contrast-enhanced ultrasound in the diagnosis of hepatic alveolar echinococcosis. Methods: This study included 148 consecutive patients with suspected HAE who visited the First Affiliated Hospital of Xinjiang Medical University between January 2013 and February 2023. They underwent both routine ultrasound and contrast-enhanced ultrasound examinations, and the contrast-enhanced ultrasound results of all cases were compared with those of the gold standard, postoperative pathology. We evaluated date such as sensitivity, specificity of contrast-enhanced ultrasound in the diagnosis of hepatic alveolar echinococcosis. The receiver operating characteristic curve was drawn and the area under curve of the subjects calculated. The area under curve was used to evaluate the diagnostic efficiency of contrast-enhanced ultrasound. Results: Of the148 patients with suspected hepatic alveolar echinococcosis, 83 were female and 65 males, with an average age of 38 ± 13 years (range, 18–74 years). Pathological diagnoses showed that 139 patients had hepatic alveolar echinococcosis; 137 cases were diagnosed correctly with contrast-enhanced ultrasound, with a diagnostic accuracy of 92.56% (137/148), sensitivity of 94.24% (131/139), specificity of 66.66% (6/9), positive predictive value of 97.76% (131/134), negative predictive value of 42.85% (6/14), positive likelihood ratio of 2.82, and negative likelihood ratio of 0.09 (6/14). The area under curve under the receiver operating characteristic curve for contrast-enhanced ultrasound was 0.805. Conclusions: The diagnostic accuracy of contrast-enhanced ultrasound for hepatic alveolar echinococcosis is 92.56%.