[Endobronchial ultrasonic-guided transbronchial needle aspiration (EBUS-TBNA) for lung cancer diagnosis].

Background: Although bronchoscopy has an important role in the diagnosis of lung cancer, more invasive procedures, such as CT-guided biopsy or surgery, are needed when transbronchial approaches fail.

Objective: We investigated the usefulness of endobronchial ultrasonic-transbronchial needle aspiration (EBUS-TBNA) for lung cancer diagnosis.

Subjects and methods: We retrospectively evaluated 122 cases who were finally diagnosed to have lung cancer from among 388 cases who underwent bronchoscopy because of abnormal shadows on their chest X-ray or CT. When bronchoscopic approaches were possible, conventional transbronchial lung biopsy or cytology (conventional approaches) were done. EBUS-TBNA was added whenever mediastinal or hilar lymph nodes enlarged to more than 1 cm in diameter, or if there were lesions attached to the lower respiratory tract. The diagnostic accuracy of conventional approaches and EBUS-TBNA were assessed.

Results: The number of cases diagnosed as lung cancer by conventional approaches was 79 cases (64.8%) among the 122 cases examined. Of the 43 cases undiagnosed by these procedures, 27 cases were diagnosed as lung cancer by EBUS-TBNA. Thus, 106 cases (86.9%) were diagnosed as lung cancer using conventional approaches plus EBUS-TBNA. No severe complications were observed in all the subjects.

Conclusion: EBUS-TBNA is a safe and useful approach for the diagnosis of lung cancer together with staging.