Intraoperative ultrasound in gastrointestinal cancer. An analysis of 272 operated patients.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Diagnostic efficacy of the intraoperative ultrasound was compared with pre- and postoperative ultrasound, and with the intraoperative surgical examination.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

The prospective study of 272 patients with the cancer of esophagus, stomach, duodenum, colon and rectum was performed.

RESULTS

In 103 patients (37.8%) intraoperative ultrasound identified oncological pathology in the liver, other parenchymal organs, lymph nodes or local invasion of the cancer. Sixty-nine liver metastases were found in 45 patients and in 21 patients (7.7%) only intraoperative sonography discovered these deposits. The diagnostic efficacy value of this method in detecting liver metastases is much higher than preoperative ultrasound and intraoperative palpation. Intraoperative ultrasonography, as the only method, has shown local tumor invasion in 13 patients (4.8%) and metastatic lymph nodes in 8 patients (2.9%). In 53 patients (19.5%) information gathered from intraoperative sonography, caused modification of the surgical procedure.

CONCLUSIONS

These data show that intraoperative ultrasound is a simple, cheap and useful clinical technique, which can examine not only the liver, but also the tumor and lymph node areas. The method is also very effective in assessment of the completeness of the range of adequate primary tumor resection.