CLINICAL EXPERIENCES WITH ULTRASONIC ENDOSCOPY

Abstract

Recently, ultrasonic diagnostic equipment has been so widely used that early diagnosis is much more frequent, especially in cases of digestive disorders. However, it is still difficult to diagnose pancreatic lesions or submucosal lesions of the upper digestive tract by scanning from the abdominal wall with electric linear scanners, because their potential for tissue characterization is still insufficient. Thus, ultrasonic endoscopy for direct scanning from the inside of the upper digestive tract has been recently developed (Olympus Co. and, Aloka Co.) . The authors had the opportunity of using this new equipment and to evaluate its efficiency in the diagnosis of three clinical conditions ; pancreas cancer, pancreas cyst and duodenal leiomyoma. Some difficulties arose in obtaining clear pictures, because the tip of the gastroscope, where the 5.0 MHz ultrasonic probe was fixed, was too long to be adequately controlled. If this device is improved from this standpoint, the scanning method would be useful in the diagnosis of epigastric diseases.