Endoscopic Ultrasonography IN JAPAN: PRESENT STATUS and STANDARDIZATION

Since endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS) was developed in 1980, its application has been expanded into not only biliopancreas diseases, but also gastrointestinal diseases. Because of this EUS has become a indispensable diagnostic imaging examination. However, EUS has some problems, such as difficulty in understanding biliopancreas anatomy. Furthermore each enodosonographer has their own style of examination, therefore there is no standard EUS examination. This paper describes the status of EUS in Japan in 2001.