Endoscopic Mediastinal Staging in Lung Cancer Is Superior to "Gold Standard" Surgical Staging

The objective was to evaluate whether endobronchial ultrasonography (EBUS) or endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS) staging techniques of the mediastinum for lung cancer can change the treatment plan compared with the "gold standard" of surgical staging.

Patients were retrospectively identified from a prospectively collected database. Endoscopic staging was compared with the "gold standard" cervical mediastinoscopy (CM). In cases where mediastinoscopy was not performed, EBUS/EUS was compared with "ideal" CM, a virtual procedure, which was assumed to have 100% rates of sensitivity and specificity.

EBUS was performed in 324 patients (99%), EUS in 295 patients (90%), and CM in 101 patients (31%); 226 patients (69%) were assumed to have undergone a virtual ideal CM and a virtual surgical mediastinal staging; 108 positive biopsies (33.0%) with endosonography had sampling of targets that were out of the scope of CM. Distant metastatic disease was diagnosed by EBUS/EUS in 7 patients (2.1%); 22 patients (6.7%) had positive targets outside the reach of the CM or virtual CM. If the 14 patients who had positive stations 5, 6, 10, and 11 are excluded (accessible with anterior mediastinotomy or extended cervical mediastinoscopy), there were 6 patients (1.8%) in whom endosonography upstaged the patient over ideal surgical mediastinal staging. In 20 patients (6.1%), ultrasound-guided biopsy made the diagnoses, which changed the treatment plan over CM and ideal CM.

Combined EBUS- and EUS-guided biopsies can access more targets, including lung and distant metastasis, and thus have the potential to upstage patients compared with mediastinoscopy and change the treatment plan.