PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Hamidreza Jabbardarjani AU - Arda Kiani AU - Mahdi Karimi AU - Mohammad Fakhri TI - Cryobiopsy shows better safety profile and diagnostic yield as compared to conventional forceps for interstitial lung disease DP - 2013 Sep 01 TA - European Respiratory Journal PG - P2301 VI - 42 IP - Suppl 57 4099 - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/42/Suppl_57/P2301.short 4100 - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/42/Suppl_57/P2301.full SO - Eur Respir J2013 Sep 01; 42 AB - Objectives: Transbronchial lung biopsy (TBLB) is an invasive procedure and is used for the diagnosis of interstitial lung diseases. TBLB by a flexible cryoprobe is a new method that is believed to be as efficacious as the conventional technique. This study wants to compare diagnostic yield and safety profile of the two techniques.Methods: This study included 40 patients with exophitic and interstitial lung lesions who underwent transbronchial lung biopsy under guidance of C-arm fluoroscopy. All procedures were done by skilled pulmonologist after deep sedation. Definite diagnosis of patients was based on pathologic findings, patient’s history and radiologic reports. Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to compare the diagnostic yield and complications between the two methods.Results: The incidence of bleeding in the cryobiopsy technique was significantly lower when compared to the conventional forceps method (p<0.001). The mean ranges of alveolar spaces in cryobiopsy and forceps biopsy were 195.78 and 80.62, respectively and was statistically different (p<0.001). Preservation of the alveolar structure was significantly higher for the cryo technique (p < 0.001) while parenchymal artifacts were encountered in lower proportion of samples for this method (p<0.001). Twenty-two samples (55%) obtained from cryobiopsy resulted in definite diagnosis while this ratio for the conventional technique was significantly lower (32%, p<0.001).Conclusions: Cryobiopsy shows superiority to the conventional forceps technique for evaluation of endobronchial tumors. This advantage was noted in both the diagnostic abilities and its safety profile.