Elastography in endobronchial ultrasound: Stretching the boundary of minimally invasive staging further

Abstract

See article, page 972

Endobronchial Ultrasound Elastography Differentiates Intrathoracic Lymph Nodes: A Meta-Analysis

“…Different from the lymph nodes of the digestive tract, intrathoracic lymph nodes register more benign diseases, such as tuberculosis and sarcoidosis, among others. EBUS elastography distinguishes the malignant and benign lesion through the stiffness of the tissue [33,34]. EBUS elastography was good at NLR, but not for PLR, which easily led to the false-positive results of EBUS elastography.…”

Year in review 2017: Interventional pulmonology, lung cancer, pleural disease and respiratory infections

“…As revolutionary as EBUS‐TBNA has been in mediastinal staging of non‐small cell LC (NSCLC), there is still potential for novel tools to further improve minimally invasive mediastinal assessment of patients with NSCLC . Elastography involves biomechanically characterizing a zone of tissue on the basis of its response to the application of mechanical stress.…”

“…They report an impressive 100% sensitivity and NPV for detection of LN metastases using both quantitative and qualitative elastographic measures. Potential future roles for elastography are explored in an accompanying editorial …”

“…7,8 As revolutionary as EBUS-TBNA has been in mediastinal staging of non-small cell LC (NSCLC), there is still potential for novel tools to further improve minimally invasive mediastinal assessment of patients with NSCLC. 9 Elastography involves biomechanically characterizing a zone of tissue on the basis of its response to the application of mechanical stress. Korrungruang and Boonsarngsuk present, in the July issue of Respirology, one of the first reports regarding the ability of elastography to differentiate between benign and malignant LN in patients undergoing EBUS.…”

Optimal Endobronchial Ultrasound Strain Elastography Assessment Strategy: An Explorative Study

“…Several pilot studies now report that endoscopic ultrasound SE can also be used for differentiating malignant and benign lymph nodes in the mediastinum with high accuracy, with lesions low in strain being more likely malignant [13-20]. However, the optimal method for scoring the presentation of the SE values in EBUS applications remains unclear [21]. Several qualitative and semiquantitative techniques have been reported so far.…”