Fig 1.
CONSORT Flow diagram of patients throughout the randomized trial.
A total of 66 patients were enrolled and underwent initial EUS-FNB with 22-gauge or 25-gauge needle in random sequence. Ten patients were excluded for noncompliance with the scheduled examinations. Among them, the target lesion could not be reached because of anatomical alterations due to previous surgery (e.g., maxillary reconstruction, subtotal gastrectomy with Billroth II reconstruction, or total gastrectomy with Roux en Y reconstruction) in 5 patients, significant duodenal stricture as a result of tumor infiltration in 1 patient, and collateral intervening vessels in 2 patients. Two patients were excluded because the target lesions could not be endosonographically visualized. Thus, a total of 56 patients were eligible for the analyses. In total, 28 patients each initially underwent EUS-FNB with 22-gauge and 25-gauge needles. No patient experienced technical problems (difficult procedure or needle malfunction), after excluding the aforementioned 10 patients from the 66 total patients.
Table 1.
Chracteristics of patients and masses.
Table 2.
Cytological diagnostic categories of both needles.
Table 3.
Histological comparative data obtained by EUS-FNB using both needles.
Table 4.
Histological diagnostic performance of both needles.