Endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration for diagnosing pancreatic mass in patients with surgically altered upper gastrointestinal anatomy.

Background and aims Endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration (EUS-FNA) has been established as a safe and accurate method for diagnosing a pancreatic mass; however, EUS-FNA for patients with surgically altered upper gastrointestinal (UGI) anatomy has not yet been investigated sufficiently. Therefore, the feasibility and safety of EUS-FNA in these patients were retrospectively investigated. Methods Patients in whom EUS-FNA was performed between March 2008 and April 2017 were retrospectively investigated in terms of EUS-FNA technical success, procedure time, diagnostic accuracies of cytology and histology, and procedure-related adverse events. Results Twenty-five EUS-FNAs were performed for 15 pancreatic body-to-tail and 10 head lesions. All patients underwent EUS-FNA successfully; however, changing of the echoendoscope to a forward-viewing echoendoscope and preplacement of a nasobiliary catheter by balloon-assisted enteroscopy for guidance were needed in one and two cases, respectively. The median procedure time was 26 min (range, 16-70). The diagnostic accuracies were 76%, 84%, and 88% for cytology, histology, and combined use, respectively. Adverse events were not observed. Conclusions Endoscopic ultrasound-guided FNA is a safe and efficient method for diagnosing a pancreatic mass even in patients with surgically altered UGI anatomy. Nevertheless, some sophisticated techniques are required for pancreatic head lesions if reaching the duodenum after passing through the jejunal limb is required for visualization of the pancreatic mass.