Evolving role of endoscopic ultrasonography–guided fine-needle aspiration in tumor staging and treatment of patients with carcinomas of the upper gastrointestinal tract

IntroductionTreatments such as neoadjuvant chemotherapy and endoscopic mucosal resection for upper gastrointestinal carcinomas (UGC) necessitates preoperative staging evaluation of lymph nodes. Endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS)–guided fine-needle aspiration (FNA) of lymph nodes provides more accurate staging than EUS alone. Our study investigates the role of EUS-FNA in the staging/treatment of patients with UGC.Materials and methodsWe searched our database for patients who had EUS-FNA staging of lymph nodes for UGC over 1 year. The cytologic diagnoses were compared with clinical, radiographic, EUS-determined staging, and patient follow-up data. All EUS/EUS-FNA procedures used a standard radial and/or linear echo endoscope. Direct smears from the aspirated material were stained by Papanicolaou and Diff-Quik methods.ResultsWe studied 84 patients with esophageal or gastroesophageal junction carcinomas and 15 patients with gastric carcinomas. EUS-FNA confirmed N0 status for 100% of patients with T1 and T2 tumors and for 93% of patients with T3 tumors. Patients with T1N0 carcinomas confirmed by EUS were selected for endoscopic mucosal resection. All patients with gastric carcinomas had EUS-determined stage T3 and above tumors. Based on primary tumor stage, all patients with gastric carcinomas received neoadjuvant chemotherapy.ConclusionsCytologic diagnosis by EUS-FNA agreed with EUS nodal staging in 77% of the patients with UGC. EUS-FNA was useful to select patients with T1N0 esophageal or gastroesophageal junction carcinomas for endoscopic mucosal resection. EUS-FNA did not contribute significantly in treatment of patients with higher stage tumors whose disease was down-staged to N0 by EUS-FNA. These patients received neoadjuvant chemotherapy based on the status of the primary tumor.