Aspiration biopsies from diagnostically difficult pulmonary lesions. A consecutive case material.

A consecutive material of 244 cases of transthoracic aspiration biopsies collected in a two year period is presented. The biopsy method concerning malignant tumour cells and suspected malignant tumour cells was 8.28 per cent, the specificity was 94.9 per cent. It is suggested that the biopsy method might be applied earlier in the sequence of preoperative diagnostic procedures.