Main recommendations: 1 ESGE recommends the combination of endoscopic ultrasound-guided tissue acquisition (EUS-TA) and endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP)-based tissue acquisition as the preferred diagnostic approach for tissue acquisition in patients with jaundice and distal extrahepatic biliary stricture in the absence of a pancreatic mass. 2 ESGE suggests that brushing cytology should be completed along with fluoroscopy-guided biopsies, wherever technically feasible, in patients with perihilar biliary strictures. 3 ESGE suggests EUS-TA for perihilar strictures when ERCP-based modalities yield insufficient results, provided that curative resection is not feasible and/or when cross-sectional imaging has shown accessible extraluminal disease. 4 ESGE suggests using standard ERCP diagnostic modalities at index ERCP. In the case of indeterminate biliary strictures, ESGE suggests cholangioscopy-guided biopsies, in addition to standard ERCP diagnostic modalities. Additional intraductal biliary imaging modalities can be selectively used, based on clinical context, local expertise, and resource availability.

Objective: To evaluate the sensitivity, specificity, and diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) of Doppler ultrasound, CT, and MRI in the diagnosis of Budd Chiari syndrome (BCS). Methods: We performed a literature search in PubMed, Embase, and Scopus to identify articles reporting the diagnostic accuracy of Doppler ultrasound, CT, and MRI (either alone or in combination) for BCS using catheter venography or surgery as the reference standard. The quality of the included articles was assessed by using the Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies-2 tool. Results: 11 studies were found eligible for inclusion. Pooled sensitivities and specificities of Doppler ultrasound were 89% [95% confidence interval (CI), 81–94%, I2 = 24.7%] and 68% (95% CI, 3–99%, I2 = 95.2%), respectively. Regarding CT, the pooled sensitivities and specificities were 89% (95% CI, 77–95%, I2 = 78.6%) and 72% (95% CI, 21–96%, I2 = 91.4%), respectively. The pooled sensitivities and specificities of MRI were 93% (95% CI, 89–96%, I2 = 10.6%) and 55% (95% CI, 5–96%, I2 = 87.6%), respectively. The pooled DOR for Doppler ultrasound, CT, and MRI were 10.19 (95% CI: 1.5, 69.2), 14.57 (95% CI: 1.13, 187.37), and 20.42 (95% CI: 1.78, 234.65), respectively. The higher DOR of MRI than that of Doppler ultrasound and CT shows the better discriminatory power. The area under the curve for MRI was 90.8% compared with 88.4% for CT and 86.6% for Doppler ultrasound. Conclusion: Doppler ultrasound, CT and MRI had high overall diagnostic accuracy for diagnosis of BCS, but substantial heterogeneity was found. Prospective studies are needed to investigate diagnostic performance of these imaging modalities. Advances in knowledge: MRI and CT have the highest meta-analytic sensitivity and specificity, respectively for the diagnosis of BCS. Also, MRI has the highest area under curve for the diagnosis of BCS.

There is a paucity of evidence on the comparison between endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) fine-needle biopsy (FNB) and fine-needle aspiration (FNA) for lymph node (LNs) sampling. The aim of this study was to compare these two approaches in a multicenter series of patients with abdominal tumors. Out of 502 patients undergoing EUS sampling, two groups following propensity score matching were compared: 105 undergoing EUS-FNB and 105 undergoing EUS-FNA. The primary outcome was diagnostic accuracy. Secondary outcomes were diagnostic sensitivity, specificity, sample adequacy, optimal histological core procurement, number of passes, and adverse events. Median age was 64.6 years, and most patients were male in both groups. Final diagnosis was LN metastasis (mainly from colorectal cancer) in 70.4% of patients in the EUS-FNB group and 66.6% in the EUS-FNA group (p = 0.22). Diagnostic accuracy was significantly higher in the EUS-FNB group as compared to the EUS-FNA group (87.62% versus 75.24%, p = 0.02). EUS-FNB outperformed EUS-FNA also in terms of diagnostic sensitivity (84.71% vs. 70.11%; p = 0.01), whereas specificity was 100% in both groups (p = 0.6). Sample adequacy analysis showed a non-significant trend in favor of EUS-FNB (96.1% versus 89.5%, p = 0.06) whereas the histological core procurement rate was significantly higher with EUS-FNB (94.2% versus 51.4%; p < 0.001). No procedure-related adverse events were observed. These findings show that EUS-FNB is superior to EUS-FNA in tissue sampling of abdominal LNs.