Pulmonary neoplasms diagnosed with transthoracic needle biopsy

Abstract

Results of transthoracic needle biopsy have been evaluated on the basis of fourteen years experience comprising 5300 procedures on 2726 patients. In 90.7% of the cases a diagnosis was established. Of these, 46.4% showed cytological evidence of primary or secondary malignancy. In 2.4% false positives and in 3% false negatives were noted. The most important complication was found to be pneumothorax, which was noted in 27.2%, but these cases did not as a rule call for treatment. Hemoptysis was observed in 2–5%. There was minor local bleeding around the lesion in 11% of the patients but this only required observation. In one case out of 1264 malignancies an implantation metastasis was found. There was a single case of air embolism with spontaneous recovery, but no mortality in this series. In our experience, needle biopsy represents a minor, inexpensive and safe procedure, which-with a simple technique-permits a direct approach to all kinds of localized lung lesion with a high degree of accuracy.