Lymph node staging by endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration in patients with small cell lung cancer.

BACKGROUND: Surgical treatment of small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is limited to stage I disease. Therefore, accurate lymph node staging is mandatory in SCLC patients. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the utility of endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration (EBUS-TBNA) for the evaluation of mediastinal and hilar lymph node metastasis in patients with SCLC.

METHODS: Forty patients with untreated SCLC who underwent EBUS-TBNA for lymph node staging between November 2002 and September 2008 were retrospectively analyzed. The convex probe endobronchial ultrasonography was used for EBUS-TBNA. Lymph nodes assessed by the convex probe endobronchial ultrasonography were aspirated until EBUS-TBNA revealed malignant cells by rapid on-site cytology.

RESULTS: Endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration was successfully performed in all patients, and revealed lymph node status as follows: N0, 13 cases; N1, 5 cases; and N2, 22 cases. Among the 13 N0 cases, 9 patients underwent surgery, whereas 4 patients did not undergo surgical intervention because of enlargement of subaortic or paraaortic lymph nodes (stations 5 and 6) that precluded EBUS-TBNA assessment (n = 3) or poor performance status (n = 1). Pathologic examination of dissected nodes confirmed an N0 diagnosis in 8 patients, whereas 1 patient had hilar lymph node metastasis (N1). The sensitivity, specificity, and diagnostic accuracy rate of EBUS-TBNA were 96.4%, 100%, and 97.2%, respectively. The overall 5-year survival rate for the 9 patients who underwent surgery was 77.8%.

CONCLUSIONS: Endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration has a high diagnostic yield for the evaluation of mediastinal and hilar lymph node metastasis in SCLC and has a high impact on patient management.