Mediastinal Adenopathy in India: Through the Eyes of Endobranchial Ultrasound

Aetiology of mediastinal adenopathy is likely to vary with geographic location and socioeconomic status of a population. Whilst most of adenopathy in the West could be attributed to malignant disorders, causes of the same in a developing country like India has not been extensively studied earlier due to lack of less invasive tools to sample these nodes for cytological and microbiological analysis. Endobronchial ultrasound (EBUS) helps us reach these nodes as a minimally invasive procedure to take aspirations under real-time ultrasound guidance. The aim of the present study is to study the aetiology of mediastinal adenopathy in our population with the help of EBUS.

This was a retrospective analysis of all EBUS procedures done by the authors and the diagnosis thus obtained at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, New Delhi, India between April 2010 and December 2011.

A total of 300 patients underwent EBUS in the above period. Most common aetiology encountered in our population was a granulomatous disorder (53% cases) like tuberculosis and sarcoidosis whilst malignancy was third in order of diagnosis (17% cases). Lymph node enlargement due to anthracosis was another uncommon aetiology encountered in the study (5% cases).

Benign granulomatous disorders like tuberculosis and sarcoidosis are the most common causes of mediastinal adenopathy in our population. EBUS is proving its worth for diagnosing mediastinal adenopathy.