Transbronchial biopsy to sample lymph nodes and tumors that are not visible at endoscopy has a poor (<50%) success rate. These nodes can be highlighted easily at virtual computed tomographic (CT) bronchoscopy to provide a guide. This study was performed to evaluate if the addition of this information to the bronchoscopist improved the success rate of transbronchial biopsy of subcarinal and aortopulmonary lymph nodes. The addition of virtual CT bronchoscopy with lymph node highlighting significantly (P < .5) increased biopsy success rates for pretracheal, hilar, and high pretracheal adenopathy.

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Background: Computer simulations are of increasing importance in modeling biological phenomena. Their purpose is to predict behavior and guide future experiments. The aim of this project is to model the early immune response to vaccination by an agent based immune response simulation that incorporates realistic biophysics and intracellular dynamics, and which is sufficiently flexible to accurately model the multi-scale nature and complexity of the immune system, while maintaining the high performance critical to scientific computing.