Ultrasound-guided vs endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration for pancreatic cancer diagnosis

Table 1 Characteristics of patients and comparison of results of percutaneous biopsy with those of endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration

	Percutaneous biopsy	EUS-FNA	P value
	Group A	Group B
Patients	46	75
Site of puncture
Pancreas	46	74	> 0.9999
Head/body/tail	12/32/2	34/31/9	0.0114
Sex (male/female)	25/21	39/36	> 0.8525
Age, yr			> 0.8466
≥ 65	28	48
< 65	18	27
Tumor diameter, mm (range)	44.8 (18-111)	25.5 (7-70)
≥ 40	30	25	0.0007
< 40	16	50
Passes (range)	2.26 (1-4)	2.85 (2-5)	< 0.0001
Adequate specimens obtained1n (%)
Cytology	42 (91.3)	75 (100)	0.0192
Histology	41 (89.1)	65 (86.7)	0.7812
Positivity for cancer n (%)
Cytology	33 (78.6)	72 (94.6)	0.0079
Histology	33 (80.5)	51 (78.4)	> 0.9999
Total n (%)	43 (93.5)	73 (97.3)	0.3672
Complications n (%)	2 (4.3)	1 (1.3)	> 0.5567
	Fever1	Peritonitis1
	Bleeding1
Time from puncture to definitive diagnosis
Cytology, d (range)	4.05 (0-8)	1.65 (0-5)	< 0.0001
Histology, d (range)	3.95 (2-7)	3.18 (2-10)	0.7066

¹An on-site pathologist was available for endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration (EUS-FNA) but not for ultrasonography-guided-FNA.