title: Influence of age, sex, body mass index, alcohol, and smoking on shear wave velocity (p-SWE) of the pancreas.
abstract: A variety of elastographic techniques have been developed to facilitate the non-invasive assessment of tissue properties. The goal of the study was to examine the influence of gender, age, BMI, alcohol consumption, and smoking in healthy volunteers.
  
  
  
  Of the 263 participants who met all the study inclusion criteria, 234 had successful measurements. The examination was performed with the Siemens Acuson S3000 (Siemens Healthcare, Erlangen, Germany), using the 6C1 curved array transducer with the virtual touch tissue quantification (VTQ) method.
  
  
  
  The values determined with the curved array in the head of the pancreas were 1.44 ± 0.39 m/s for women and 1.19 ± 0.29 m/s for men; in the body, the results were 1.49 ± 0.37 m/s for women and 1.26 ± 0.30  m/s for men; in the tail, the corresponding values were 1.29 ± 0.36 m/s for women and 1.05 ± 0.30 m/s for men. Comparison of gender showed that men have significantly lower mean values than women. There were significantly higher values in all parts of the organ with the increasing age of the participants (p < 0.0001). For BMI, there was a significant correlation with the values only when considering the BMI in continuous form. Alcohol consumption and smoking did not have any significant effects.
  
  
  
  ARFI-VTQ is qualified for use on pancreatic tissue. Further studies are required to examine the influence of other factors in larger populations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine I, University Hospital Ulm, Albert-Einstein-Allee 23, 89081, Ulm, Germany.
authors.forename: Sabina
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Stumpf
authors.affiliation: Division of Neurophysiology, FASCIA Research, Albert-Einstein-Allee 11, 89081, Ulm, Germany.
authors.forename: Heike
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Jaeger
authors.affiliation: Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, University Hospital Ulm, Albert-Einstein-Allee 23, 89081, Ulm, Germany.
authors.forename: Tilmann
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Graeter
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine I, University Hospital Ulm, Albert-Einstein-Allee 23, 89081, Ulm, Germany.
authors.forename: Suemeyra
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Oeztuerk
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine I, University Hospital Ulm, Albert-Einstein-Allee 23, 89081, Ulm, Germany.
authors.forename: Julian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Schmidberger
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine I, University Hospital Ulm, Albert-Einstein-Allee 23, 89081, Ulm, Germany.
authors.forename: Mark Martin
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Haenle
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine I, University Hospital Ulm, Albert-Einstein-Allee 23, 89081, Ulm, Germany. Wolfgang.kratzer@uniklinik-ulm.de.
authors.forename: Wolfgang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Kratzer
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000428:Alcohol Drinking; D015992:Body Mass Index; D054459:Elasticity Imaging Techniques; D005260:Female; D064368:Healthy Volunteers; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010179:Pancreas / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D012737:Sex Factors; D012907:Smoking
keywords: ARFI; Influencing factors; Pancreas; Standard values; VTQ; p-SWE