Tissue amount and diagnostic yield of a novel franseen EUS-FNB and a standard EUS-FNA needle-A randomized controlled study in solid pancreatic lesions.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Several types of needles are available for EUS-guided tissue sampling of pancreatic lesions. Whereas fine-needle aspiration (FNA) needles typically provide cytological samples, fine-needle biopsy (FNB) needles are designed to obtain microcores with preserved tissue architecture. The aim of this study was to compare tissue amount and diagnostic yield between a modified Franseen-type FNB needle (TopGain; Medi-Globe GmbH, Grassau, Germany) and a standard FNA needle.

METHODS: We performed a prospective, multicenter randomized controlled study between June 2020 and September 2021, including patients with a solid pancreatic lesion referred for EUS-guided tissue sampling at 3 centers in Denmark. The patients were randomized 1:1 to either FNA needle or the novel FNB needle. Primary outcomes included the number of obtained tissue microcores and total and diagnostic tissue area.

RESULTS: Sixty-four patients were included. The median number of tissue microcores procured per pass was significantly higher in the FNB group compared with FNA (3 vs . 2, P < 0.001). Similarly, the mean total tissue area (2.74 vs . 0.44 mm2 , P < 0.001) and mean diagnostic tissue area (1.74 vs . 0.28 mm2 , P < 0.001) were more than 6-fold larger in the FNB samples compared with FNA. The median number of passes needed for a diagnostic sample was 1 for the FNB needle and 2 for FNA needle ( P = 0.12). The novel FNB needle provided a higher percentage of samples of excellent quality ( P = 0.002).

CONCLUSIONS: The novel Franseen-type FNB needle seems to be significantly superior to a conventional FNA needle. The results of this study underline excellent performance of crown-cut needles.