Welcome to your new journal: Endoscopic Ultrasound

Since endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) was first used approximately 30 years ago, it has revolutionized the detection and treatment approach to lesions inside and outside the gastrointestinal tract. Clinically, EUS is now enhanced by simultaneously performing interventional procedures. EUS-guided fine needle aspiration, with its ability to obtain a tissue diagnosis, has increased the accuracy of EUS in the diagnosis and staging of malignancies, which plays an important role in managing treatment selection. More recently EUS elastography and contrast-enhanced EUS are new applications and seems to be able to differentiate fibrous and benign tissues from malignant lesions. While our results are very encouraging, further research needed to define the place of this new technique. EUS has also become a therapeutic procedure, which was especially applied for celiac plexus neurolysis, pseudocyst drainage, pancreaticogastrostomy, and new treatments of pancreatic tumors, such as brachytherapy, gene or cellular therapy. More and more digestive diseases and of diseases other systems can be diagnosed and treated with EUS. The recently developed endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration enables real-time aspiration of peritrancheal and peribronchial lesions, which provides good access to mediastinal and hilar lymph nodes. Thus, EUS has opened the door for gastroenterologists and endoscopist to explore organs outside of the GI lumen, such as the lymph nodes, lung, pancreas and liver. Therefore, in this field of specialization, expertise sh ould be shared with high quality communication tools for research and development. This new journal is in response to a need for a forum on which to disseminate original research articles as well as review articles in all areas related to EUS. The journal Endoscopic Ultrasound publishes the results of novel research investigations which bridge knowledge and strategies for critical new developments in endoscopic ultrasound. It covers all aspects of EUS, from the basics to the interventional studies. It is an international, peer-reviewed journal with a focus on cuttingedge findings in this rapidly changing field, providing practical up-to-date information on EUS. As the official journal of Euro-EUS Scientific Committee and Asia-Pacific EUS Task Force, Endoscopic Ultrasound is published in an Open-Access mode. One key request of researchers across the world is unrestricted access to research publications. Open Access gives a worldwide audience larger than that of any subscription-based mode and thus increases the visibility and impact of published work. It also enhances indexing, retrieval power and eliminates the need for permissions to reproduce and distribute contents. Endoscopic Ultrasound is fully committed to the Open-Access Initiative and will provide free access to all articles as soon as they are published. Please feel free to contact us with any questions. Any feedback on the quality and subject matter of Endoscopic ultrasound is welcomed by the Editors.