Prospective study of the incidence of ultrasound-detected hepatic hematomas due to percutaneous Menghini needle liver biopsy and laparoscopy-guided Silverman needle biopsy.
Recently, a high incidence of sonographically detected hepatic hematomas following percutaneous liver biopsy and laparoscopy-guided liver biopsy has been reported. For this reason a prospective study in 178 patients was performed. The patients were examined by ultrasound before and 24 hours after percutaneous liver biopsy using the 1.4 mm-Menghini needle (n = 107) and by laparoscopically-guided biopsy with the 2.5 mm-Silverman needle (n = 71). Four of the 107 patients (4%) who underwent percutaneous Menghini biopsy displayed hepatic hematoma on ultrasonography, and in 2 of these cases the hematoma was > 6 cm in diameter and persisted for more than seven months. In the group of patients who underwent laparoscopy-guided Silverman biopsy (n = 71) a liver hematoma occurred twice (3%). Both hematomas were small and disappeared within several days. There was no need for special therapeutic interventions due to complications. In contrast to recent data about Tru-cut and JAM-Shidi biopsy, the results of this study indicate that percutaneous Menghini biopsy and laparoscopy-guided Silverman biopsy are relatively safe diagnostic procedures.