BMJ  2004;329:290 (31 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7460.290-b

Letter

Fine needle aspiration of hepatic colorectal metastases

Damage is done now

The first 100% of the full text of this article appears below.

EDITOR—Well, the damage is done now.¹ Thank you, BMJ.

No amount of evidence based, reasoned debate is likely to undo the damage that your Grub Street one liner has caused to an inexpensive, comparatively non-invasive, and often very useful technique. The only thing that is useless and dangerous here is an inappropriate title attached to a rather slight case report.

If the title is the authors' (it does sound a bit surgical) then you should have changed it. If it is yours then you should be ashamed. An exchange of correspondence buried in a subsequent edition of your tabloid will not fix this one. A reflective editorial on the importance of maintaining standards in medical journalism might. Useless and dangerous? I should say so.

Somerset Pathology Service, Yeovil District Hospital, Yeovil BA21 4AT knows@est.nhs.uk

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See editorial by Roskell and Buley

Competing interests: SK is a cytopathologist.

1. Metcalfe MS, Bridgewater FHG, Mullin EJ, Maddern GJ. Useless and dangerous—fine needle aspiration and hepatic colorectal metastases. BMJ 2004;328: 507-8. (28 February.)[Free Full Text]

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