Keywords:
Liver, CT, Ultrasound, Biopsy, Quality assurance
DOI:
10.26044/ranzcr2023/C-112
Purpose
Multiple biopsy passes improves the diagnostic yield of liver biopsies, but also increases the risk of complications, such as post procedural pain and bleeding [1]. An adequate non-targeted liver biopsy sample should contain at least 11 portal tracts [2]. To obtain sufficient tissue, the recommended needle size for liver biopsies is 16 gauge, with a minimum sample length of 20mm [2-4]. However, the correlation between the length of tissue sample and the number of portal tracts obtained with an 18 gauge BioPince needle is uncertain. As such, the primary aim of this study was to determine the length of liver tissue required to provide an adequate sample of 11 portal tracts with an 18 gauge BioPince needle when performing non-targeted liver biopsies. This would subsequently inform the number of biopsy passes needed to optimise and balance the risk of complications with the adequacy of the sample. A secondary aim was to determine the proportion of diagnostic biopsy samples.