[CT-assisted transthoracic puncture of pulmonary lesions and mediastinal infiltrations. A retrospective study of 300 patients].

With this retrospective study we evaluated the results and the complications of our 343 CT-guided transthoracic biopsies, which we performed in 300 patients with localised and infiltrative lesions of the lung and the mediastinum during 4 years, using the VacuCut-needle in 96% of our cases. In 256 pts. bronchoscopy without final diagnosis was performed before transthoracic biopsy. In 219 pts. (73.0%) we had positive results. In 209 pts. with malignancies the positive rate was 73.7%. In patients with benign processes the positive rate was less (67.8%). Out of 32 pts, suffering from mediastinal lesions 29 had malignancies. In 79.3% positive results were obtained. The rate of complications was low (9%) in 311 biopsies of pulmonary lesions, most were pneumothoraces (7.7%). Haemorrhages occurred in 4 pts. (1.3%) 5 pts. (1.6%) required drainage because of pneumothorax. On the base of our good results and the low complication rate we recommend CT-guided transthoracic aspiration biopsy with the VacuCut-needle as a useful and accurate diagnostic technique.