en Gastroentrology Gastroentrology Review Article Review Article <p style="text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i><span style="color: blue; font-size: 10pt;">Background: </span></i></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><font color="#000000">Transient elastography (TE) is a new modality for the diagnosis of liver fibrosis caused by various etiologies. This study was conducted to determine the accuracy of TE in detecting the different stages of liver fibrosis in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) patients.</font></span></font></p> <p style="text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i><span style="color: blue; font-size: 10pt;">Methods:</span></i></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><font color="#000000"> MEDLINE/PubMed, Embase, Ovid, Cochrane Library, American College of Physicians (ACP) Journal Club, Google Scholar, Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects, and Web of Science that evaluated the liver stiffness by means of TE and liver biopsy were enrolled in this systematic review and meta-analysis. Published articles were extracted from 2002 to March 2015.</font></span></font></p> <p style="text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i><span style="color: blue; font-size: 10pt;">Results:</span></i></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><font color="#000000"> A total of 7 articles from 114 papers were included which consisted of 698 patients. The results indicated that when F &ge;3, the outcomes were 93.7% (95% confidence interval (CI): 92-95.5), 91.1% (95% CI: 89-93.2), 82.4% (95% CI: 79.9-84.9), and 95.9% (95% CI: 94.4-97.4) for sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV), respectively. With fibrosis stage &ge;4, it has reached the sensitivity of 96.2 % (95% CI: 94.5-97.8), a specificity of 92.2% (95% CI: 89.9-94.6), a PPV of 5.5% (95% CI: 51.2-59.8) and NPV of 98.5% (95% CI: 97.4-99.5).</font></span></font></p> <p style="text-indent: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i><span style="color: blue; font-size: 10pt;">Conclusion: </span></i></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><font color="#000000">We concluded that as the pathological fibrosis increases, the sensitivity, specificity and NPV of TE in the diagnosis of fibrosis improves in NAFLD patients. TE can be considered as a unique alternative instead of liver biopsy in NAFLD patients and it has an important role in the exclusion of liver cirrhosis. More studies are required to confirm the results.</font></span></font></p> Transient elastography, Fibro scan, Fibrosis, Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease 242 252 http://caspjim.com/browse.php?a_code=A-10-499-1&slc_lang=en&sid=1 Seyyedabbas Hashemi amamali110@gmail.com 10031947532846006683 10031947532846006683 Yes Baqiyatallah Research Center for Gastroenterology and Liver Diseases, Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran Seyyedmoayed Alavian 10031947532846006684 10031947532846006684 No Mohammad Gholami-Fesharaki 10031947532846006685 10031947532846006685 No Department of Biostatistics, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.