Ultrasound guided percutaneous fine needle aspiration biopsy of the liver with focal lesion

ABSTRACT

The ultrasound-guided fine needle aspirations were performed in order to diagnose a suspected neoplastic orinfectious diseases in 52 patients with focal liver disease. Of these, neoplastic lesions were suspected in 31patients and infectious lesions in 21 patients ultrasonically and/or clinically. The overall accuracy for bothsuspected malignant and infectious disease was 79%(41/52). The primary indication for fine needle aspiration wasto document the presense of malignancy and to avoid a diagnostic laparotomy, and to drain hepatic abscesses.Consequently we were convinced that the ultasound