Pancreas ultrasound two-dimensional shear wave elastography in healthy children

Background Pancreas shear wave speed might be a biomarker of pancreatic disease in children. Objective This study aimed to measure pancreas shear wave speed by two-dimensional (2-D) ultrasound shear wave elastography (SWE) in a balanced cohort of presumed healthy children. Materials and methods This was a prospective study of 120 children (<18 years of age) without a known history of pancreatic disease, who underwent ultrasound 2-D SWE of the pancreas. Five shear wave speed measurements in the pancreas body and/or tail were obtained for each participant using a Canon Aplio i800 system, i8CX1 transducer. The Mann-Whitney U test or Kruskal-Wallis test were used to compare continuous distributions. Spearman's correlation was used to assess univariate relationships between continuous variables. Multivariable regression with stepwise selection was used to evaluate independent predictors of pancreas shear wave speed. Results The median age for the study population was 5.0 years (range: 7 days to 17.8 years) and 61 (50.8%) of the participants were female. The median depth of shear wave speed measurement was 4.7 cm (interquartile range [IQR]: 4.2-5.3). The median pancreas shear wave speed was 1.31 m/s (IQR: 1.21-1.40). On multivariable analysis, female biological sex (P=0.051), the number of hours nil per os (P=0.097), the median depth of measurement (P=0.001) and the median liver shear wave speed (P=0.020) were positively associated with pancreas shear wave speed. Conclusion We report pancreas shear wave speed in a large, balanced cohort of children without a known history of pancreatic disease, providing reference values for normal.

Automated summary

Pancreas shear wave speed was measured in presumed healthy children using 2-D ultrasound shear wave elastography. Female biological sex, fasting time, depth of measurement, and liver shear wave speed were positively associated with pancreas shear wave speed.