Assessment of complications of EUS-guided fine-needle aspiration

Background: EUS-guided fine-needle aspiration (EUS-FNA) permits both morpho logic and cytologic analysis of lesions within or adjacent to the GI tract. Despite increasing use at this technique, the safety and overall complicat ion rates remain poorly defined. Methods: During a period of 20 months, 322 consecutive patients underwent E US-FNA in 2 centers. All procedures were performed with the patients under general anesthesia. All complications (including local complications result ing from endoscopy/aspiration or clinical complications after the procedure ) were evaluated. Potential risk factors for the development of complicatio ns were also analyzed including site and nature of the lesion, presence of portal hypertension, and number of needle passes. Results: A total of 345 lesions were aspirated in 322 patients. EUS-FNA inv olved the pancreas in 248 cases, Pancreatic lesions included solid (134) an d cystic (114) types, which required a mean of 2.5 and 1.4 needle passes, r espectively. Complications were observed in 4 (1.2%) patients after aspirat ion of pancreatic cystic lesions (acute pancreatitis, n = 3; aspiration pne umonia, n = l)and all cases of pancreatitis resulted from FNA of lesions in the head/uncinate process. No complications resulted from FNA of solid pan creatic lesions. Complications were not observed after FNA of lymph nodes ( n = 62) and one case of aspiration pneumonia was observed after FNA of a st romel tumor, EUS-FNA was performed without complication in 16 patients (5%) with portal hypertension. The number of needle passes was not predictive o f complications. Conclusions: Because the overall risk of complications from EUS-FNA was rel atively low (1.6%) with no severe or fatal incidents and although the risk appears slightly higher than that for standard EUS alone, the safety of EUS -FNA appears acceptable based on this analysis from an experienced center.