TY - JOUR T1 - Liver biopsy: “blind” or under ultrasound control JF - Gut JO - Gut SP - 157 LP - 158 DO - 10.1136/gut.49.1.157 VL - 49 IS - 1 AU - I M MURRAY-LYON AU - R de WILDE Y1 - 2001/07/01 UR - http://gut.bmj.com/content/49/1/157.abstract N2 - Editor,—We wish to comment on the paper by Shahet al ((1999) Gut 45:628–9; OpenUrlCrossRefPubMedWeb of Science) and subsequent correspondence ((2000) Gut 47:455–455.OpenUrlCrossRefPubMedWeb of Science) from Aspinall.The case for the superior safety of ultrasound guided liver biopsy has not yet been proved and the British Society of Gastroenterology Guidelines (1999) do not advocate this as routine best practice. Perforation of the gall bladder is a very rare complication (eight times in 68 276 biopsies in the series reported by Piccinino and colleagues1) and one of us has seen the records of a case in which the gall bladder was punctured at liver biopsy done under real time ultrasound guidance. No technique is entirely … R Playford. r.playford{at}ic.ac.uk ER -