Statistical analyses

We performed a Mann–Whitney U test to determine whether the area of the sampled tissue was significantly different between the EZ3 and TopGain groups. Additionally, we performed a χ ² test to observe any significant differences in the percentage of cases with a tissue area of ≥4 mm² between the EZ3 and TopGain groups. We calculated odds ratio (OR), 95% confidence interval (95% CI), and P‐values for each clinical item for each event using logistic regression models with age, sex, lesion site, puncture route, EZ3 or TopGain needle, number of punctures, and clinical disease as explanatory variables. A tissue area of ≥4 mm² was the objective variable. The P‐values were tested against the null hypothesis of an OR of 1.0 at a two‐sided 5% significance level. We performed a multivariate analysis of the items with P < 0.15 from the univariate analysis. The level of significance was set at P < 0.05.

We used the statistical software StatFlex Ver 7.0.11 (Artech Co., Ltd., Osaka, Japan) for statistical analysis.