BACKGROUND: The diagnosis of @entity1575 is important in the evaluation and management of @entity1 . Liver biopsy is the gold standard but it is invasive. Ultrasonography is a non-invasive and useful modality in assessing the @entity409 for certain conditions but its sensitivity and specificity in diagnosing @entity82 is unknown locally. AIM: To assess the accuracy of ultrasonography in diagnosing compensated @entity1575 in daily clinical practice outside the context of clinical trials. METHODS: All the @entity409 biopsies were identified from the Pathology Logbook retrospectively from January 1998 to March 2001. Only @entity1 who had both @entity409 biopsy and ultrasonography with no clinical evidence of @entity82 were included. @entity1 with incomplete data, @entity157 or @entity409 secondaries were excluded. Ultrasonographic diagnosis of @entity82 was based on nodularity or irregularity of the @entity409 surface, small @entity409 size, coarse echotexture and increase attenuation by using the 3.5 to 5 MHz transducers. RESULTS: A total of 151 @entity409 biopsies were performed during this period. Eighty-eight @entity1 who had both ultrasound and @entity409 biopsy were analysed. Seventeen @entity1 had ultrasonographic diagnosis of @entity82 but only six cases were proven by a @entity409 biopsy. On the other hand, 10/16 cases of biopsy-proven @entity82 were "missed" by ultrasound. Thus, the sensitivity of ultrasonography in diagnosing @entity82 was 37.5% and the specificity was 84.7%. The positive and negative predictive values were 35.3% and 85.9% respectively. CONCLUSION: Low frequency ultrasonography is not a sensitive test for the diagnosis of @entity1575 in daily clinical practice.

Ultrasonography is not reliable in diagnosing XXXX in clinical practice.

@entity1 :: ('9606', 'Species') :: ['Patients', 'patients'] @entity82 :: ('MESH:D005355', 'Disease') :: ['cirrhosis'] @entity409 :: ('MESH:D008107', 'Disease') :: ['liver'] @entity1575 :: ('MESH:D008103', 'Disease') :: ['liver cirrhosis'] @entity157 :: ('MESH:D006528', 'Disease') :: ['hepatoma']
@entity1575 :: (MESH:D008103,Disease) :: ['liver cirrhosis']
