Fludarabine in paediatric steroid-refractory inflammatory lung injury after stem cell transplantation.

From this experience, we conclude that transbronchial biomechanical analysis can be performed during bronchial endoscopic ultrasound. Tracheobronchial cartilage does not appear to interfere with collection of this type of information. The preliminary results suggest that elastography could possibly improve the diagnostic yield of bronchial endoscopic ultrasound, as has already been demonstrated in gastrointestinal endoscopy. This is all the more important as endobronchial ultrasonography has a low negative predictive value regarding the neoplastic involvement of mediastinal lymph nodes (see [11] for an example). We propose that our preliminary results justify the setting-up of large-scale studies to precisely describe the operating characteristics of bronchial endoscopic ultrasound elastography. It would also be interesting to determine whether elastography could improve guidance of TBNA in heterogeneous lymph node masses or limit the number of TBNAs performed, by primarily targeting the lymph nodes most likely to be malignant.