Endoscopic Ultrasound Guided Fine Needle Aspiration Biopsy in Diagnosis of Pancreatic and Peripancreatic Lesions: A Single Center Experience in Korea

guided fine needle aspiration (EUS-FNA) has been in-troduced and its use has been increasing in Korea, there have not been many reports about its perfor-mance. The aim of this study was to assess the utili-ty of EUS-FNA without on-site cytopathologist in esta-blishing the diagnosis of solid pancreatic and peri-pancreatic masses from a single institution in Korea. Methods: Medical records of 139 patients who under-went EUS-FNA for pancreatic and peripancreatic solid mass in the year 2007, were retrospectively reviewed. By comparing cytopathologic diagnosis of FNA with fi-nal diagnosis, sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy were determined, and factors influencing the accuracy as well as complications were analyzed. Results: One hundred twenty out of 139 cases had final diag-nosis of malignancy. Sensitivity, specificity, and accu-racy of EUS-FNA were 82%, 89%, and 83%, re-spectively, and positive and negative predictive values were 100 % and 46%, respectively. As for factors in-fluencing the accuracy of FNA, lesion size was mar-ginally significant (p-value 0.08) by multivariate analy-sis. Conclusions: EUS-FNA performed without on-site cytopathologist was found to be accurate and safe, and thus EUS-FNA should be a part of the standard management algorithm for pancreatic and peripancre-atic mass. (Gut and Liver 2009;3:116-121) Key Words: EUS-FNA; Pancreatic neoplasms; Peripan-creatic mass; Diagnostic accurac