European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine

Abstract

EBUS-TBNA plays a vital role in diagnosis of lymphoma. Mediastinoscopies or thoracotomies have been performed as the standard procedure to obtain a histologic diagnosis in patients with mediastinal lymphadenopathy and suspected lymphoma. These procedures require general anesthesia and carry immense risks. Mediastinoscopy also has limited access to perihilar lymph nodes. Conventional TBNA, though superior to mediastinoscopy, has been shown to be inferior to EBUS-TBNA due to a lower specificity and sensitivity. At Apollo Hospital, on an average 1-2 patients undergo EBUS-TBNA every week. Based on this statistic, we got about 72 patients who underwent EBUS TBNA during my study period. About 58 patients were eligible for the study satisfying the inclusion criteria, allowing for some who did not give consent for the study. Every effort was made to screen and recruit the maximum possible number of patients for the study. With the use of Chi square test, we found that EBUS TBNA had sensitivity 88.88%, specificity 87.75%. Positive predictive value 57.11% and negative predictive value 97.72% for malignant cytology.