[Towards another diagnostic approach of peripheral pulmonary masses. Ultrasound-guided puncture]

In a series of 50 patients with lung lesions touching the thoracic wall, percutaneous ultrasonically guided needle aspiration yielded a pathological diagnosis in 44 cases (sensitivity: 88%). The histological diagnosis of malignant lesion could be confirmed in 41 of these 44 patients. In this group of patients with neoplasia the diagnosis obtained by extemporaneous cytology was compared with that obtained by lung biopsy: the diagnostic sensitivity of cytology proved to be higher than that of biopsy (86.36% and 65.90% respectively). Using the two methods concomitantly increased sensitivity up to 93.18%. A pathological diagnosis could be obtained in 3 out of the 6 patients in this series who had benign lesions.