title: Nonpulmonary thoracic biopsy.
abstract: The aim of the present paper is to distinguish between thoracic pulmonary needle biopsy--which can be carried out under fluoroscopic guidance--and thoracic extrapulmonary needle biopsy, which requires a more accurate type of guidance, such as CT. Among the 500 thoracic punctures performed during the last 5 years, we considered only 90 biopsies of mediastinal (N = 58) or thoracic wall (N = 32) masses. We have thus excluded all parenchymal lesions of the lungs. For extrapulmonary thoracic masses, CT was the method of choice for biopsy guidance which provided diagnostic evidence of small-diameter mediastinal lesions that permitted analysis of the relationship to vascular structures and performance of extrapleural needle insertion, using larger-gauge needles to ensure accurate needle placement within the lesion. In both mediastinal and thoracic wall lesions an overall accuracy rate of 84% was obtained. In no case was thoracic drainage required for treatment of the moderate degree of pneumothorax that occurred in 1% of our patient population.
authors.affiliation: Istituto Nazionale Dei Tumori, Milano.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Garbagnati
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Lutman
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Valvassori
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Marchianó
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bellegotti
mesh_terms: D001707:Biopsy, Needle / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008479:Mediastinal Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology; D013899:Thoracic Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed