Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jan 21, 2017; 23(3): 486-495
Published online Jan 21, 2017. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v23.i3.486
Macro- and microcirculation patterns of intrahepatic blood flow changes in patients with hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia
Roland C Schelker, Ana P Barreiros, Christina Hart, Wolfgang Herr, Ernst-Michael Jung
Roland C Schelker, Christina Hart, Wolfgang Herr, Department of Internal Medicine III, Hematology and Oncology, University Hospital of Regensburg, 93051 Regensburg, Germany
Ana P Barreiros, Ernst-Michael Jung, Department of Radiology, University Hospital of Regensburg, 93051 Regensburg, Germany
Author contributions: Schelker RC conception and design, collection and/or assembly of data, analysis and interpretation, manuscript writing and revisions; Barreiros AP collection and/or assembly of data; Hart C manuscript writing and revisions; Herr W manuscript writing and revisions; Jung EM conception and design, analysis and interpretation, manuscript writing, final approval of manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the ethical committee of the University Hospital of Regensburg Institutional Review Board.
Informed consent statement: All study participants, or their legal guardian, provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors indicate no potential conflicts of interest.
Data sharing statement: Technical appendix, statistical code, and dataset available from the corresponding author at roland.schelker@ukr.de. Participants did not give informed consent for data sharing but the presented data are anonymized and risk of identification is very low.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dr. Roland C Schelker, Department of Internal Medicine III, Hematology and Oncology, University Hospital of Regensburg, Franz-Josef-Strauss-Allee 11, 93051 Regensburg, Germany. roland.schelker@ukr.de
Telephone: +49-941-9445501 Fax: +49-941-9445514
Received: August 26, 2016
Peer-review started: August 29, 2016
First decision: September 28, 2016
Revised: October 7, 2016
Accepted: October 30, 2016
Article in press: October 31, 2016
Published online: January 21, 2017
Core Tip

Core tip: For the first time we analyzed contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) examination of a group of 18 hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia (HHT) patients regrading macro- and microcirculation. This new information could be used to sub-classify a high risk group of asymptomatic patients with therapeutic indication. With regard to the advent of new therapeutic agents, CEUS analysis can complete the required accurate cost-effective screening methods in HHT patients.