Endoscopic ultrasonography

Twenty years after the introduction of endoscopic ultrasonography, many papers on the topic are still being published every year in the medical literature. Along with established clinical indications, such as gastrointestinal and pancreatic cancer staging and differential diagnosis of submucosal tumors, new applications have been suggested, such as mediastinal and liver tumor sampling with fine-needle aspiration. Improved accuracy and cost-effectiveness have been demonstrated in comparison with other imaging techniques. Reports of large series of fine-needle aspiration procedures have described a high level of accuracy for EUS in the diagnosis of lymph nodes and perivisceral masses. Pancreatic and ampullary tumors still represent a major challenge, as shown by numerous articles describing differential-diagnostic criteria and cytological sampling techniques. A few papers have also been published on the topic of portal hypertension, but it seems questionable whether there is any real advantage for endoscopic ultrasonography over traditional endoscopy here. New techniques such as radiofrequency tumor ablation are promising, while others such as three-dimensional imaging and the use of contrast enhancement have not yet met with routine clinical application. Finally, some of the papers published during the last year have studied the technique of endoscopic ultrasonography itself, dealing with issues of outcome, current clinical availability and use, and the learning curve. Evidently, endoscopic ultrasonography is still widely underused - not only among general practitioners and physicians in other specialties, but even by gastroenterologists. Although endoscopic ultrasonography is already 20 years old, considerable efforts are still needed, therefore, to ensure that it becomes more widely accepted in clinical practice.