Introduction: Diagnosis of lung nodules is still under investigation. We use computed tomography scans and positron emission tomography in order to identify their origin.
Patients and methods: In our retrospective study, we included 248 patients with a single lung nodule or multiple lung nodules of size ≥1 cm. We used a radial-endobronchial ultrasound and a C-Arm. We used a 1.1 mm cryoprobe versus a 22G needle vs. forceps/brush. We compared the sample size of each biopsy method with the number of cell-block slices.
Results: Central lesions indifferent to the method provided the same mean number of cell-block slices (0.04933-0.02410). Cryobiopsies provide less sample size for peripheral lesions due to the higher incidence of pneumothorax (0.04700-0.02296).
Conclusion: The larger the lesion ≥2 cm, and central, more cell-blocks are produced indifferent to the biopsy method (0.13386-0.02939). The time of the procedure was observed to be less when the C-Arm was used as an additional navigation tool (0.14854-0.00089).
Keywords: bronchoscopy; brush; cell-blocks; cryobiopsy; forceps; lung cancer; radial-ebus.