The Role of Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology in the Diagnosis of Gallbladder Cancer: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Gallbladder cancer is the most common malignancy of the biliary tract. When diagnosed in an advanced stage it has a very poor prognosis. Therefore, early diagnosis and thorough assessment of a suspicious gallbladder polyp is essential to improve survival rate. The aim of this systematic review is to assess the role of fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) in the management of gallbladder cancer. For that purpose, a systematic review was carried out in the MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane, Scopus and Google Scholar databases between 1 July 2004 and 22 April 2021. Six studies with 283 patients in total were included. Pooled sensitivity and specificity of FNAC were 0.85 and 0.94, respectively, while the area under the calculated summary receiver operating characteristic (SROC curve (AUC) was 0.98. No complications were reported. Based on the high diagnostic performance of FNAC in the assessment of gallbladder masses, we suggest that every suspicious mass should be evaluated further with FNAC to facilitate the most appropriate management.

Precursor Lesions of Gallbladder Carcinoma: Disease Concept, Pathology, and Genetics

“…Acknowledging the pathology of precursor neoplastic lesions of the gallbladder is extremely important not only for pathologists but also radiologists, physicians, and surgeons. Although EUS-FNA for diagnosing gallbladder lesions has not been widely used, the demand for the procedure is increasing not only for gallbladder lesions with wall thickening but also for gallbladder polyps [ 67 , 68 , 69 ].…”

Technical aspects of transpapillary biopsy for gallbladder cancer using a novel cholangioscope

“…Endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration (EUS-FNA) has recently been performed for gallbladder lesions. However, because the gallbladder has a lumen, inadequate EUS-FNA can lead to bile leakage or cancer cell dissemination [1,2]. Therefore, it is sometimes difficult to obtain histological tissue samples from gallbladder tumors.…”