Endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS) has become an indispensable method for diagnosis and therapeutic procedures in gastroenterology. As experience with this technique grows, new indications continue to emerge. Due to the vicinity of the transducer to the liver, endoscopic ultrasonography provides detailed images of the liver segments and its vascular and biliary structures. Endosonographers have made an effort to define a clinical role for endoscopic ultrasound in liver diseases; however, not much is known about endoscopic ultrasound guided fine needle aspiration (EUS-FNA) in hepatic focal lesions. This review summarizes the available evidence regarding the usefulness of endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration in patients with focal liver lesions.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming imaging modalities in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), particularly in endoscopy and ultrasound. Despite their critical roles, both modalities are challenged by interobserver variability, subjectivity, and accessibility issues. AI offers significant potential to address these limitations by enhancing lesion detection, standardizing disease activity scoring, and supporting clinical decision-making. In endoscopy, deep convolutional neural networks have achieved high accuracy in detecting mucosal abnormalities and grading disease severity, reducing observer dependency and improving diagnostic consistency. AI-assisted colonoscopy systems have also demonstrated improvements in procedural quality metrics, including adenoma detection rates and withdrawal times. Similarly, AI applications in intestinal ultrasound show promise in automating measurements of bowel wall thickness, assessing vascularity, and distinguishing between inflammatory and fibrotic strictures, which are critical for tailored therapy decisions. Video capsule endoscopy has likewise benefited from AI, reducing interpretation times and enhancing the detection of subtle lesions. Despite these advancements, implementation challenges, including dataset quality, standardization, AI interpretability, clinician acceptance, and regulatory and ethical considerations, must be carefully addressed. The current review focuses on the most recent developments in the integration of AI into experimental designs, medical devices, and clinical workflows for optimizing diagnostic accuracy, treatment strategies, and patient outcomes in IBD management.

Aims: There are few data on the use of endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) for the biopsy of suspected malignant lesions of the lung. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of transesophageal EUS fine needle aspiration (EUSFNA) for the diagnosis of paraesophageal lung tumors and also for the confirmation of metastatic sites of lung cancer during the same procedure.Material and methods: We performed a retrospective study in a tertiary care unit including 19 patientswith paraesophageal lung tumors referred to our department for a lung biopsy. Transesophageal EUS-FNA was performed using a linear echoendoscope and 22G needles.Results: In all 19 patients with suspected lung tumors the confirmation of the malignant disease was achieved. Pathological examination revealed 16 cases of non-small cell lung cancers, 2 small cell lung cancers and one case of lung metastases. Diagnostic yield of lung EUS-FNA was 1, with no post-procedural complications. In 7 cases, we performed also biopsies of suspected metastasis and all biopsies revealed the same histopathological type as the primary tumor.Conclusions: Our study supports the use of this minimally invasive technique for paraesophageally locatedlung tumors and demonstrates that EUS-FNA is safe and has an excellent diagnostic yield.

Although the phenomenon of addiction has existed, in one form or another, throughout the entire history, in contemporary society it takes new, more powerful forms, that need to be better understood. Also, today there are new methods and technologies of research, unavailable to past generations, that can shed new light on this complex matter. It is also advisable to use an interdisciplinary approach, as different areas of research can in fact cooperate to achieve a better understanding of addiction. It must also be taken into account that, being a very complex phenomenon, certain aspects of addiction can only be understood by certain sciences, and then the conclusions can be unified through the use of phenomenology. This study will try to perform precisely this kind of endeavor, revealing the phenomenon of addiction from more then one perspective, focusing on the many facets that it can have.