[The importance of cytodiagnosis of perbronchial fine needle aspiration of mediastinal or hilar tumours (author's transl)].

In almost all bronchoscopy patients perbronchial puncture of hilar lymph nodes was performed routinely. There were 1883 punctures performed in 1841 patients. In histologically proven malignant processes tumour cells were demonstrated in the smear in 84% of the cases, whereas in 97 cases of sarcoidosis a cytological diagnosis could be made in 94%. On account of the high specificity, the harmlessness of the procedure and the minimal stress caused to the patient in comparison with mediastinoscopy or thoracoscopy perbronchial fine needle asperation is highly recommended in unclear mediastinal processes as well as to determine the operability of a bronchial carcinoma or stage of a tumour according to the TNM system.