PolyU professor invents Liverscan: a portable non-invasive system for liver fibrosis assessment
16 Aug 2021
Alcohol abuse and hepatic tissue scarring due to long-term inflammation may cause liver fibrosis. In severe cases, liver fibrosis may develop into serious problems like liver cirrhosis, dysfunction and cancer. In recent years, transient elastography (TE) diagnostic technology has emerged as a non-invasive method to assess liver fibrosis by measuring the stiffness of the liver, but it has the disadvantages of high cost and insufficient accuracy. In view of this, Ir Professor Zheng Yong-ping, Department of Biomedical Engineering of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University has led a research team to develop Liverscan, a palm-sized wireless device that combines TE with a real-time ultrasound image guided system, substantially bringing down the cost and greatly enhancing the accuracy of measurement through the real-time imaging. Its lightweight and portable design allows medical staff to perform liver fibrosis detection for patients anytime, anywhere.
Liverscan has a patented B-mode ultrasound image-guided feature, so that the stiffness of liver tissues can be measured by TE with real-time guidance. This way, the operator has a map of where to measure and where to avoid, greatly improving the accuracy,
Ir Professor Zheng Yong-ping
Henry G. Leong Professor in Biomedical Engineering, Chair Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Henry G. Leong Professor in Biomedical Engineering, Chair Professor of Biomedical Engineering