Endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration and fine needle biopsy (EUS-FNA/FNB) have become mainstay diagnostic techniques for the diagnosis and evaluation of lesions of the pancreas, the upper gastrointestinal tract, as well as adjacent structures, including lymph nodes. Cytology specimens provided from FNA cannot fully characterize certain neoplasms such as lymphomas or mesenchymal tumors. Core biopsy specimens for histological examinations are needed to provide accurate diagnoses.
ProCore needles (ProCore, Wilson-Cook Medical Inc. Winston-Salem, NC) were designed to obtain histological and cytological samples. Studies comparing ProCore needles with standard FNA needles showed no significant difference in diagnostic accuracy, histological core tissue procurement or mean number of passes.
To overcome the above mentioned limitations (mainly suboptimal core tissue procurement rates), a new novel SharkCore needle (Beacon Endoscopic, Newton, MA, USA) has been designed and approved for clinical human use by the FDA.
The objective of the study is to compare the new EUS guided histology biopsy needle SharkCore to the currently used EUS histology needle, ProCore, for the histological diagnosis and evaluation of lesions.
