3 Clinical Trials for Various Conditions
The purpose of this study is to track outcomes and complications of patients at IUMC referred by physicians for EUS-guided pancreatic cyst ablation. This information is essential in order to disseminate future published information to physicians about this technique. A database will be created to track these patients undergoing an already scheduled/planned procedure. Phone calls at selected intervals will be made following the procedure to track any complications that occur
Pancreatic cysts are found incidentally on 15-50% of CT and MRIs for all indications and their prevalence is increasing. Many of these cysts may be precursors to pancreatic cancer, and thus pose a substantial risk, however, the vast majority are benign. Increased detection of pancreatic cysts provides an opportunity to diagnose pancreatic malignancy at an early, curable stage yet also increases the potential to over-treat clinically insignificant lesions. This presents a clinical challenge to prevent unnecessary resection of indolent disease, with associated risks of infections, bleeding, diabetes, and costly disability. Unfortunately, there is little information on the epidemiology and natural history of pancreatic cysts to help guide management.
The study is based on a multi-center approach of needle based confocal laser endomicroscopy (nCLE) combined with endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) and EUS-guided fine needle aspiration (FNA) to evaluate pancreatic cystic lesions (PCL), in order to obtain a correct histopathological diagnosis.After detection of PCL, certain morphological EUS features allow the discrimination of specific cyst types. Additionally, EUS-FNA is recommended as the first-line procedure whenever pathological diagnosis is required; however the procedure has its drawbacks, mainly represented by the relatively low negative predictive value in diagnosing pancreatic cancer. In this case a more precisely diagnostic tool is required; the potential role of CLE has been explored in gastrointestinal (GI) pathology showing good accuracy for predicting the final histopathological diagnosis based on immediate evaluation of tissue and vascular patterns. Although the clinical impact of nCLE for the decision making algorithms in cystic pancreatic neoplasm has not yet been described, the hypothesis is that EUS-nCLE could allow targeted tissue sampling of cystic pancreatic neoplasms resulting in more accurate diagnosis. The aim of the study is to describe the clinical impact of nCLE for the clinical decision management algorithm based on EUS, EUS-FNA and/or EUS-CLE imaging criteria for cystic pancreatic neoplasms, while evaluating also the feasibility and safety of nCLE examination.