Endoscopic nursing aspects of endoscopic ultrasonographic investigations

Introduction: In the last 10 years endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS) investigations became an essential part of the diagnosis of the gastrointestinal disorders. EUS is a combination of endoscopy and high-frequency ultrasound. A small EUS transducer is mounted onto the tip of a side-view endoscop and generates a radial of 360° picture with a frequency of 12 and 7.5 Mhz. EUS can provide a detailed information about the gastrointestinal tract lesion's extent and penetration and necessary for correct locoregional tumor staging. Application of EUS can be useful to differentiate between intramural and submucosal lesions, as well as extramural compressions.

Case report: During the last one year we performed 31 EUS investigations in our Olympus Medical Care endoscopic laboratory with Olympus GF-UMQ 130 and CF-UM 20 radial EUS instruments. In the current presentation we describe some important nursing aspects of the examination technique with video-presentation of some interesting cases in our EUS records.

Conclusion: Availability and routine application of EUS in the large endoscopic centres is essential to achieve correct oncological staging before making the decision between endoscopic mucosectomy or surgery.