Diagnosis and invasive staging: Non-surgical invasive mediastinal staging. Endobronchial ultrasound

The diagnosis and staging of lung cancer are an important process that identifies treatment options and guides disease prognosis. Therefore, an accurate mediastinal lymph node (LN) staging is required not only to offer the appropriate treatment but also to avoid unnecessary invasive procedures. At present, endobronchial ultrasound (EBUS)-transbronchial needle aspiration is the preferred modality for sampling mediastinal lymph nodes because of its minimally invasive nature and high diagnostic yield. In this review, we discuss the utility of EBUS in mediastinal LN staging of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

The use of EBUS-TBNA in the diagnosis of mediastinal and hilar LN pathology has become in an essential endoscopic technique and the first step for staging of lung cancer.