State of the art lecture: Endoscopic ultrasonography: Training and competence

Endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS) has become an important diagnostic and - recently - also therapeutic tool in gastrointestinal endoscopy, mostly complementary to other primary investigations. Its application in oncology as well as in a variety of benign conditions, the mixture of endoscopy and ultrasound as an imaging technique as well as the complexity of instrument handling to generate adequate visualization have all raised the necessity to define competence and hence design respective training programmes.