Comparison of specimen adequacy and diagnostic accuracy of a 25-gauge and 22-gauge needle in endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration

Endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration (EBUS-TBNA) is a minimally invasive diagnostic procedure used in the sampling of mediastinal and hilar lymph nodes (1,2). EBUS-TBNA is primarily used in diagnosing and staging lung cancer, but additional applications exist, including evaluation of unexplained mediastinal lymphadenopathy, suspected granulomatous diseases (i.e., sarcoidosis) and lymphoproliferative disorders (2-5). The most recent guidelines from the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP) and European Society of Thoracic Surgeons (ESTS) recommend EBUS-TBNA as the first-line test for mediastinal staging in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) (1,6)