Diagnostic Yield of Transbronchial Needle Aspiration (TBNA) for Cases with Intra-Thoracic Lymphadenopathies

Evaluation of the lymph nodes in cases with lung cancer for diagnosis or staging has been considered since many years ago. Various methods have been developed for obtaining a sample from lymph nodes. This study was conducted in a research institute with high patient turnover and aimed at evaluating the diagnostic yield of TBNA and effective factors on diagnosis and related complications in patients with pulmonary lesions.

Our understudy population included all patients suffering from undiagnosed intrathoracic lymphadenopathies with no accompanying pulmonary lesions on chest CT scan who had been hospitalized in Masih Daneshvari Hospital or referred to its bronchoscopy unit. After determining the anatomic location of lymphadenopathy (LAP), patients underwent fiberoptic bronchoscopy (FOB) and TBNA using 19-gauge eXcelon aspiration needle. Four samples were taken from each patient from the same LAP location. In this study, 39 patients were evaluated.

The most common anatomic location of lymph node involvement among our understudy patients was the paratracheal area which was involved in 14 (45.2%) patients followed by subcarinal area in 12 cases (38.7%) and hilar involvement also in 12 cases (38.7%). Five patients (15.6%) had lymphadenopathies in other anatomical locations. Evaluation of the aspirates obtained by TBNA showed that the sample was adequate and diagnostic in 21 patients (55.26%), adequate but non-diagnostic in 9 patients (23.68%) and inadequate in 8 cases (21.06%). Definite diagnosis was made in 22 patients among which the most common diagnosis was atypical and malignant lesions in 11 cases (50%) followed by sarcoidosis in 8 (36.36%), tuberculosis (TB) in 2 (9.09%) and other diagnoses in 1 (4.55%) case.

Based on our study results, TBNA was diagnostic in more than half the cases. Various studies have reported a wide range of results in this respect but all of them including ours emphasize on the acceptable diagnostic yield of this technique.