Endoscopic fine needle aspiration biopsy of gastroesophageal malignancies.

We have evaluated the results of endoscopic fine needle aspiration cytology in 50 consecutive cases of suspected malignancy of the esophagus and stomach and compared them with those of forceps biopsy and brush cytology. The diagnostic yield with forceps biopsy, fine needle aspiration, and brush cytology in 46 cases of carcinoma was 88.8%, 89.1%, and 80.4%, respectively. A combination of forceps biopsy and brush cytology gave an accuracy of 93.5% while the addition of fine needle aspiration increased the yield to 100%. This was due to a very high positive yield of fine needle aspiration in infiltrative tumors.