EUS-guided Fine Needle Biopsy With a New Core Histology Needle Versus Conventional Fine Needle Aspiration

Endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) is a well-established tool for the diagnosis and staging of many gastrointestinal conditions, including but not limited to, malignant and pre-malignant neoplasms of the pancreas, esophagus, rectum, and submucosal tumors developing along the gastrointestinal tract. EUS is the most sensitive test for the detection of focal lesions within the pancreas and is the most accurate method for diagnosing pancreas cancer. A biopsy method for tissue sampling via EUS called fine needle aspiration (FNA) was developed that enables a small needle to be passed into the lesion of interest under ultrasound guidance, obtaining cellular material for cytology. EUS-FNA is currently recommended for the diagnosis of cystic and solid mass lesions within and adjacent to the gastrointestinal tract. Yet in certain clinical circumstances, it is more desirable and sometimes necessary to obtain a core tissue biopsy for histology rather than the cellular material for cytology obtained with EUS-FNA. Furthermore, histology may generally increase the diagnostic yield of EUS-FNA compared to cytology. It is with these aims in mind that a new type of needle, the fine needle biopsy (EUS-FNB) device was developed to enable core tissue sampling. Since a comparison of these to methods has yet to be made, the aim of this study is to perform a direct comparison of the sampling adequacy and diagnostic yield of the new EUS-FNB needle with the conventional EUS-FNA needle.