[Fine needle aspiration cytology of liver and pancreas tumors]

The authors' experience on the liver and pancreas tumours diagnosis by fine needle aspiration biopsy (FNB) performed percutaneously with ultrasound guidance (partly on blind) or intraoperatively is reported. Two hundred and eleven patients in total have been investigated. In 82 patients a FNB of the liver was performed and in 70 patients a FNB of the pancreas was done and for comparison 59 "macrobiopsies" (MB) of the liver were examined cytologically. The FNB made success fully permitted a complete cytologic investigation to be done and approached the possibilities of the MB. By FNB 67 out of 71 liver neoplasms and 29 out of 30 neoplasms of the pancreas have been diagnosed, i.e. the diagnostic sensitivity was 0.94 and 0.97 respectively. No false positive results were established and the diagnostic accuracy was 0.95 for liver tumours and 0.99 for pancreatic tumours. The possibilities for typification of the neoplasms by means of the FNB are enormous. The liver and the pancreas FNB proved to be a most helpful method for diagnosing the tumorous processes and could save a number of invasive, expensive and labour-consuming examinations.