Comparison of the novel Franseen needle versus the fine-needle aspiration needle in endoscopic ultrasound-guided tissue acquisition for cancer gene panel testing: A propensity score-matching analysis

Background and aim: Reports have indicated that a surface area of 4 mm² or more of collected tissue sections could provide the recommended total DNA for the OncoGuide NCC Oncopanel system, which is a cancer gene panel test developed in Japan. We wished to compare the percentage of tissue sections collected by endoscopic ultrasound-assisted tissue acquisition (EUS-TA) with surface areas of ≥4 mm² between a conventional needle, namely the EZ Shot 3 Plus (Olympus Medical Japan, Tokyo, Japan) (EZ3), and the recent SonoTip TopGain (MediGlobe, Rohrdorf, Germany) (TopGain).

Method: From April 2010 to December 2021, among 693 EUS-TA cases, EZ3 was used in 390 cases and TopGain in 45. The EZ3 and TopGain groups were matched in a 1:1 ratio with a tolerance of 0.2, with 35 patients each matched using propensity score analysis.

Results: The TopGain group had a significantly higher percentage of cases with a tissue area of ≥4 mm² than the EZ3 group (42.9% vs 68.6%, P = 0.030). Multivariate analysis revealed an association between TopGain and tissue areas of ≥4 mm² (odds ratio 2.996, 95% confidence interval 1.068-8.403, P = 0.037).

Conclusions: EUS-TA using TopGain significantly collected more ≥4 mm² tissue area compared with EZ3, suggesting its usefulness for cancer gene panel testing.