Optical Biopsy for Thoracic Lymph Nodes.

EUS-FNA is the recommended diagnostic examination of choice when patients present with suspected lower mediastinal lymph nodes on imaging. EUS-FNA is minimal invasive and low in costs, and although it has a good record in detecting diseases (eg confirm a nodal metastasis or granulomas) it has limitations in excluding diseases (missing metastases/ or granulomas) resulting in a false negative rate of 15-20%. Substantial limitations that most likely can be attributed to areas within the node that are not sampled during EUS-FNA tissue acquisition. Improved needle based EBUS/ EUS guided nodal diagnostics might result in improved quality of the fine needle aspirations, reduce in surgical diagnostic procedures , reduced costs and result in a shorter timebefore-treatment interval.