Patient friendly, less harmful examination by endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS)

Abstract

Endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS) is a useful tool in the diagnosis of pancreatic diseases as well as biliary ones; however until now, EUS has not been regarded as a common diagnostic modality. The possible reasons for this situation about EUS are that the equipment of EUS is relatively expensive compared to usual gastro-intestinal endoscope, and mostly, another reason is thought to be the technical problem. Methodologically, EUS is one of the most difficult endoscopic examinations, and it takes a long time to master EUS procedure, leading to a burden of suffering on the patients. Nonetheless, EUS technique can be acquired in a short term for anyone who has adequate experience with ERCP providing that they learn a standard EUS procedure. We believe that experienced technique provides less harmful EUS examination and reliable diagnosis. The contents of this paper describing instruction about standard EUS procedure was presented at the 40^th congress of Japan Biliary Association in the section of "Learn from the Experts".