Endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration: The wet suction technique

Endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration (EUS-FNA) has become a fundamental tool in obtaining cytopathological diagnosis of pancreatic tumors. When sampling solid lesions of the pancreas, the endosonographer can use two suction techniques to enhance tissue acquisition; the dry and the wet suction techniques. The standard dry suction technique relies on applying negative pressure suction on the proximal end of the needle after the stylet is removed with a pre-vacuum syringe. The wet suction technique relies on pre-flushing the needle with saline to replace the column of air with fluid followed by aspiration the proximal end by using a prefilled syringe with saline. A new modified wet suction technique (hybrid suction technique) relies on preloading the needle with saline, but having continuous negative pressure with a pre-vacuum syringe to avoid manual intermittent suction. Tissue acquisition can be enhanced by applying fluid dynamic principles to the current aspiration techniques, such as the column of water used in the needle of the wet technique. In this review, we will focus on EUS-FNA using the wet suction technique for sampling of pancreatic solid lesions.