Interventional technology developer Cook Medical has added a 25-gauge needle to its EchoTip ProCore line of fine-needle biopsy histology devices for use in endoscopic ultrasound procedures.
EchoTip ProCore is a single-use, disposable needle for fine-needle biopsy procedures intended for sampling submucosal lesions, mediastinal masses, lymph nodes, and intraperitoneal masses.
In a poster presentation at the Digestive Disease Week (DDW) conference currently under way in San Diego, researchers at the Chao Comprehensive Digestive Disease Center of the University of California, Irvine, reported that when using the 25-gauge biopsy needle, they were able to obtain a single-pass diagnosis of 88% in suspected tumors of the pancreas. An additional 3% increase in diagnoses was obtained when additional passes were performed.
While endoscopic ultrasound is an established procedure for diagnosing and staging gastrointestinal cancers, fine-needle aspiration can have limited yield and sensitivity. EchoTip ProCore may facilitate diagnosis of pancreatic cancer on the first pass of a procedure because of its small size and a modified slow-pull technique for tissue acquisition, the company said.
