Endoscopic aspiration biopsy of the pancreas.

Preoperative endoscopic aspiration biopsies were performed on 51 patients with pancreatic lesions using either a duodenal or gastric fiberscope and a newly designed biopsy needle. The accuracy of this method in the diagnosis of carcinoma of the pancreas was 84.0%. Although there were three false-negative diagnoses, there were no false-positives. No complications that could be attributed to this procedure were encountered.