VALUE OF ULTRASOUND-GUIDED FINE-NEEDLE AS PIRATION OF LIVER-LESIONS

Objective: To correlate liver fine needle aspiration (FNA) diagnosis w ith histopathological diagnosis and clinical evolution. Design: Retros pective analysis of liver FNA validity, evaluating sensitivity, specif icity and predictive value of the method in correlation with the clini cal evolution and biopsy results. Results: Malignancy was diagnosed in 46 cases (20 hepatocarcinomas and 26 liver metastases), and benign le sions in 24 patients. Ten additional cases were excluded on the ground s of insufficient material or the impossibility of establishing clinic o-histological correlation. There were 6 false-negatives and one false -positive. The overall accuracy of the method was 90% with a sensitivi ty of 88.2% and specificity of 94%. The positive and negative predicti ve values of the method were 97.8 and 75%, respectively. Conclusions: Liver FNA is efficient in cases of suspected liver tumoration. The tec hnique proved particularly useful in the present series in diagnosing liver metastases, often allowing the establishing of tumor origin.