Abstract
BACKGROUND: Invasive mediastinal lymph node staging is essential to resectable non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. This retrospective study aimed to compare the diagnostic yield of endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration (EBUS-TBNA) against cervical mediastinoscopy (CMS) in radiologically enlarged mediastinal lymph nodes. METHODS: Retrospective data were collected from January 2009 to March 2016. Suspected lung cancer patients with enlarged mediastinal lymph nodes (short axis ≥10 mm), underwent EBUS-TBNA or CMS for invasive mediastinal staging were enrolled. Substantial radical resection with systematic mediastinal lymphadenectomy (SML) was used as the gold standard. Mediastinal lymph nodes diagnostic comparison and N staging analysis were conducted in this study. RESULTS: Fifty-five patients received EBUS-TBNA and one hundred and ninety patients received CMS were included into the analysis set. In per case analysis, no significant differences were seen between EBUS-TBNA and CMS in N staging accuracy (83.6% vs. 78.9%, P=0.444). EBUS-TBNA had significantly higher sensitivity than CMS (82.4% vs. 47.6%, P=0.039) in malignant lymph nodes diagnosis. In lymph nodes diagnosis comparison (station #2, #4 and #7), both EBUS-TBNA and CMS showed high diagnostic sensitivity, specificity and accuracy (82.4% vs. 94.7%, P=0.130; 97.4% vs. 100%, P=0.173; 98.8% vs. 92.9%, P=0.025; respectively), CMS had slightly better diagnostic accuracy rate than EBUS-TBNA. Malignant lymph nodes had longer short axis than benign nodes (mean 14.2 vs. 6.5 mm, P<0.001). In lymph nodes with a short axis ≥15 mm, the malignant rate was 48.8%. More complications and injuries were found in patients receiving CMS. CONCLUSIONS: For clinically suspected lung cancers with enlarged mediastinal lymph nodes, both EBUS-TBNA and CMS are favorable invasive mediastinal staging options. EBUS-TBNA may be preferred for its higher malignant diagnostic sensitivity and fewer complications.