Abstract

Ultrasonically guided fine needle aspiration biopsies were performed on 65 patients with focal liver lesions. Biopsies were repeated in patients with 5 benign, 2 suspicious and 2 unsatisfactory cytologic results. 52 (77,6%) of the cases were diagnosed as malign, 11 (16.4%) as benign and 2 (3%) as suspicious. There were 2 (3%) false negatives. The diagnostic sensitivity of this technique was 96.2% for malignant lesions with 100% specificity. Complications was observed in 2 cases as bleeding treated with transfusion. When benign results are correlated with clinical, laboratory and radiologic data, ultrasonically guided fine needle aspiration biopsy in differential diagnosis of focal liver lesions appears to be a safe, low-cost and accurate method of diagnosis.