Endobronchial Ultrasound-guided Transbronchial Needle Aspiration

Andrew Rl Medford (1)

1 Respiratory Medicine

Linear probe endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration (EBUS-TBNA) offers a minimally invasive mediastinal lung cancer staging and diagnostic tool. Current surgical staging is more invasive (with rare but serious complications) and expensive (requiring general anaesthesia, operating theatre staff and a thoracic surgeon). EBUS-TBNA performs comparably to mediastinoscopy in many respects and is superior to conventional transbronchial needle aspiration (TBNA). EBUS-TBNA also has an important diagnostic role for inaccessible lung cancer and benign disease. There are important cost considerations and technical differences from flexible bronchoscopy. After a brief historic rationale, this paper reviews the indications for EBUS-TBNA, gives an overview of practical, training and financial issues; reviews the evidence comparing the mediastinal staging tools; and briefly discusses potential future applications.

Mots clés: Medicine

Andrew Rl Medford. Endobronchial Ultrasound-guided Transbronchial Needle Aspiration. International Journal of Clinical Practice, 2010, 64 (13), pp.1773. ⟨10.1111/j.1742-1241.2010.02454.x⟩. ⟨hal-00592308⟩