Observational Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Oncol. Apr 15, 2025; 17(4): 101925
Published online Apr 15, 2025. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v17.i4.101925
Usefulness of shear-wave elastography for detection of lymph node metastasis in esophageal and gastric cancer
Mikito Suzuki, Nobuyuki Sakurazawa, Nobutoshi Hagiwara, Hideki Kogo, Takahiro Haruna, Ryuji Ohashi, Hiroshi Yoshida
Mikito Suzuki, Nobuyuki Sakurazawa, Nobutoshi Hagiwara, Hideki Kogo, Hiroshi Yoshida, Department of Gastroenterological Surgery, Nippon Medical School, Tokyo 113-8603, Japan
Takahiro Haruna, Ryuji Ohashi, Department of Integrated Diagnostic Pathology, Nippon Medical School, Tokyo 113-8603, Japan
Co-first authors: Mikito Suzuki and Nobuyuki Sakurazawa.
Author contributions: Suzuki M, Sakurazawa N, and Hagiwara N conceived this study; Kogo H and Haruna T processed the experimental data; Suzuki M performed the analysis, drafted the manuscript and designed the figures; Sakurazawa N supported statistical analyses; Yoshida H and Ohashi R supervised the project; All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Nippon Medical School Hospital (No. B-2022-582).
Informed consent statement: Written consent was obtained from all the patients in this study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement—a checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement-a checklist of items.
Data sharing statement: Data is available upon reasonable request to the corresponding author.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (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: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Mikito Suzuki, MD, Surgeon, Department of Gastroenterological Surgery, Nippon Medical School, 1-1-5, Sendagi, Bunkyo-ward, Tokyo 113-8603, Japan. mkt1118@nms.ac.jp
Received: October 1, 2024
Revised: January 17, 2025
Accepted: February 5, 2025
Published online: April 15, 2025
Processing time: 175 Days and 13.3 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Evaluating lymph node metastasis from malignant tumors is crucial because it significantly influences treatment planning and prognosis. Shear-wave elastography is a simple, noninvasive, and objective ultrasound method for measuring tissue stiffness. In this study, the hardness of lymph nodes removed during surgery for esophageal and gastric cancer was measured using shear-wave elastography and compared with the pathological examination. The sensitivity and specificity were 0.76 and 0.82, respectively, whereas the area under the curve was 0.74 (95% confidence interval: 0.69-0.84). Shear-wave elastography was useful in detecting lymph node metastases in the upper gastrointestinal tract.