PROSPECTIVE-STUDY OF THE INCIDENCE OF ULTRASOUND-DETECTED HEPATIC HEMATOMAS DUE TO PERCUTANEOUS MENGHINI NEEDLE LIVER-BIOPSY AND LAPAROSCOPY-GUIDED SILVERMAN NEEDLE-BIOPSY

Recently, a high incidence of sonographically detected hepatic hematom as following percutaneous liver biopsy and laparoscopy-guided liver bi opsy has been reported. For this reason a prospective study in 178 pat ients was performed. The patients were examined by ultrasound before a nd 24 hours after percutaneous liver biopsy using the 1.4 mm-Menghini needle (n=107) and by laparoscopically-guided biopsy with the 2.5 mm-S ilverman needle (n=71). Four of the 107 patients (4%) who underwent pe rcutaneous Menghini biopsy displayed hepatic hematoma on ultrasonograp hy, and in 2 of these cases the hematoma was > 6 cm in diameter and pe rsisted for more than seven months. In the group of patients who under went laparoscopy-guided Silverman biopsy (n=71) a liver hematoma occur red twice (3%). Both hematomas were small and disappeared within sever al days. There was no need for special therapeutic interventions due t o complications. In contrast to recent data about Tru-cut and JAM-Shid i biopsy, the results of this study indicate that percutaneous Menghin i biopsy and laparoscopy-guided Silverman biopsy are relatively safe d iagnostic procedures.