The 2016 HaPanEU/United European Gastroenterology guidelines provide evidence-based recommendations concerning key aspects of the medical and surgical management of chronic pancreatitis based on current available evidence. These recommendations should serve as a reference standard for existing management of the disease and as a guide for future clinical research.

This Guideline from the European Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ESGE) focuses on technical aspects of endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS)-guided sampling in gastroenterologythe choice of needle, sampling technique, and specimen handling and processing -and updates the previous guideline on these topics published in 2012 [1]. The target audience for this Guideline is endoscopists who perform EUS-guided sampling. Indications, results, and clinical impact of EUS-guided sampling are addressed in a separate clinical Guideline from ESGE [2].Guideline development process ESGE commissioned this Guideline and appointed a Guideline leader (J.M.D.) who invited the listed authors to participate in the project development. The key questions were prepared by the coordinating team (M.P., J.M.D.) and then approved by the other members. The coordinating team formulated key questions and assigned them to task force subgroups (Appendix e1 and Appendix e2, available online-only).Each task force performed a systematic literature search to prepare evidence-based and well-balanced statements on their assigned key questions. The literature search was performed in Medline through PubMed to identify new publications since ABBREVIATIONS CI confidence interval ESGE European Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy EUS endoscopic ultrasound FNA fine needle aspiration FNB fine needle biopsy G gauge GRADE Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation LN lymph node RCT randomized controlled trial ROSE rapid on-site cytologic evaluation RECOMMENDATIONSFor routine EUS-guided sampling of solid masses and lymph nodes (LNs) ESGE recommends 25G or 22G needles (high quality evidence, strong recommendation); fine needle aspiration (FNA) and fine needle biopsy (FNB) needles are equally recommended (high quality evidence, strong recommendation).When the primary aim of sampling is to obtain a core tissue specimen, ESGE suggests using 19G FNA or FNB needles or 22G FNB needles (low quality evidence, weak recommendation). ESGE recommends using 10-mL syringe suction for EUSguided sampling of solid masses and LNs with 25G or 22G FNA needles (high quality evidence, strong recommendation) and other types of needles (low quality evidence, weak recommendation). ESGE suggests neutralizing residual negative pressure in the needle before withdrawing the needle from the target lesion (moderate quality evidence, weak recommendation). ESGE does not recommend for or against using the needle stylet for EUS-guided sampling of solid masses and LNs with FNA needles (high quality evidence, strong recommendation) and suggests using the needle stylet for EUSguided sampling with FNB needles (low quality evidence, weak recommendation). ESGE suggests fanning the needle throughout the lesion when sampling solid masses and LNs (moderate quality evidence, weak recommendation).ESGE equally recommends EUS-guided sampling with or without on-site cytologic evaluation (moderate quality evidence, strong recommendation GuidelineThis document was downloaded for person...

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On-site cytopathological evaluation improves the diagnostic yield of EUS-guided FNA for the cytological diagnosis of solid pancreatic masses. This is associated with a significantly lower number of inadequate samples and a lower number of needle passes.

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