Ultrasound Guided Fine Needle Aspiration Biopsy of Abdominal Masses

Introduction Ultrasound guided fine needle aspiration biopsy of abdominal masses is an increasingly common diagnostic procedure in oncology. Various imaging modalities like lymphography, fluoroscopy and computerized tomography (CT) have been utilized in the evaluation of abdominal masses. The advantages of ultrasono-graphy is that it is rapid, inexpensive, versatile, no ionizing radiation is applied, does not require injection of contrast medium and can be easily repeated when necessary (1). Ultrasound guided fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) is a safe diagnostic procedure in which any structure visualized can be reached quickly and precisely by a fine needle in any desired plane with constant visualization of the needle tip during insertion. The non availability of CT, coupled with the higher incidence of advanced malignancy due to public awareness, over burdened surgical units with meager resources, requires this procedure for cancer management in developing countries (2). This study plans to correlate cytological morphology with the histopathological findings in tissues from abdomen obtained by ultrasound guided fine needle aspiration biopsy.