Fang JX, Chen XY, Yang QM, et al. - In this study with 56 healthy volunteers and 187 patients with diabetic nephropathy (DN), researchers explored factors impacting renal resilience in patients suffering from DN. Harder renal parenchyma was detected in patients with DN vs healthy volunteers, and an increase in the stiffiness was evident with the progression of the disease. The factors that impacted the stiffiness of the renal parenchyma were: disease stage, duration of diabetes, and serum creatinine (SCr) concentration, as revealed in multivariate logistic regression analysis. To determine alterations in the stiffiness of the renal parenchyma in patients with DN, shear-wave elastography (SWE) can be employed. Young’s modulus of the renal parenchyma was shown to be associated with the duration of diabetes, urinary albumin excretion, and SCr level. Therefore, SWE can be employed to objectively as well as non-invasively stage DN.