Contralateral Pneumothorax: An Unexpected Complication of EBUS-TBNA

An unusual complication of endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration (EBUS-TBNA): the needle breakage.

Endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration (EBUS-TBNA) is now becoming a widely accepted procedure to investigate the mediastinum for the staging of non-small-cell lung cancer and diagnosing mediastinal lesions. During the intervention, some minor or major complications may occasionally occur. The present case report describes the first reported case of needle breakage dur...

Severe Pneumomediastinum Complicating EBUS-TBNA

To the Editor: Pneumomediastinum infrequently complicates diagnostic bronchoscopy. Increased airway or alveolar pressure results in air leaks to the mediastinum through existing or induced defects. Excessive cough, recurrent episodes of increased abdominal pressure, vomiting, or sneezing can all induce spontaneous pneumomediastinum. Less commonly it has been documented with lung or neck infecti...

EBUS-TBNA: A Decade of Progress

Roberto F Casal1*, Donald R Lazarus2, Georgie A Eapen1 and Kazuhiro Yasufuku3 1Department of Pulmonary Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas, USA 2Section of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Michael E DeBakey VA Medical Center, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA 3Division of Thoracic Surgery, Toronto General Hospital, Toronto, Canada *Corr...

EBUS-TBNA with ROSE-tinted spectacles?

The learning curve for EBUS-TBNA.

We read with interest the paper by Kemp and colleagues 1 which utilises cumulative sum (CUSUM) to analyse the learning curves associated with endobronchial ultra-sound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration (EBUS-TBNA). The retrospective study from five centres demonstrated that variable learning periods are required to attain proficiency in the procedure, and a pooled sensitivity of 67.4% was...