Gastrointestinal Oncology at UCI Medical Center

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	[ Clinical Services ]
		Overview
		Gastrointestinal Endoscopy and Surgery
		Motility Disorders and Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD)
		Gastrointestinal Oncology
		Endoscopic Ultrasound: A view from within

	[ Clinical Trials ]
		Overview
		EUS Fellowship

	[ Faculty ]
		Dr. Kenneth J. Chang
		Dr. John G. Lee
		Dr. V. Raman Muthusamy
		CDDC Nursing Team

[Endoscopic Ultrasound: A view from within.]

A High-Tech Combination

Endoscopic Ultrasound (EUS) combines two sophisticated technologies, endoscopy and ultrasound, for more accurate diagnosis, staging and treatment of gastrointestinal, pancreatic and pulmonary diseases.

Endoscopy passes a flexible, lighted tube into the gastrointestinal tract through the mouth or anus to visualize the lining of digestive organs such as the esophagus (swallowing tube), stomach, small intestine and colon.

Ultrasound creates cross-sectional images of internal organs from high-frequency sound waves emitted by the probes.

EUS adds a very sensitive ultrasound probe to an endoscope and passes it through the digestive tract so physicians can visualize organs in even greater detail.

Why EUS?

Some digestive organs are so deep in the body that standard endoscopy, conventional ultrasound, Computerized Axial Tomography (CT), or Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI0 scans may not "see" them or provide enough detail for true evaluation.


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Lesions can lie "invisible under apparently normal surface tissue. Prior to EUS, accurate diagnosis often required multiple procedures, including surgery.

EUS/Needle Biopsy

EUS can also help with "tissue diagnosis" of tumors. Developed by Dr. Kenneth Chang at UCI Medical Center, technique called EUS-guided Fine Needle Aspiration (FNA) allows doctors to guide a long, fine needle into tumors, lymph nodes and abnormal fluid collections to extract a small number of cells. A pathologist then examines the cells with a microscope for abnormalities.

Benefits

As a non-surgical alternative for diagnosing gastrointestinal diseases, EUS has several benefits:

::	It can be performed on an outpatient basis without general anesthesia, reducing risks and speeding recovery.
::	It can diagnose inoperable cancer, save patients unnecessary surgery or chemotherapy and improve quality of life.
::	EUS is less costly than exploratory surgery both in time and money.

Risks

While EUS is a new procedure, it appears to have the same low risks as standard endoscopic examinations, including:

::	A mild sore throat for a day or two after EUS.
::	Some bruising at the site of the intravenous line.
::	A very rare chance of bowel perforation requiring blood transfusion or surgery.

Risks for EUS-guided FNA also include a rare chance of infection, internal bleeding or perforations of the bowel.

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