Rapid on-site evaluation during endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration for the diagnosis of hilar and mediastinal lymphadenopathy in patients with lung cancer

The purpose of this study was to assess the usefulness of rapid on-site evaluation (ROSE) during endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration (EBUS-TBNA) and the interpretation of its results. Based on the criterion of using ROSE or not, 236 patients with known or suspected lung cancer undergoing EBUS-TBNA were allocated into the ROSE group (122 patients with 252 lymph nodes) and non-ROSE group (114 patients with 260 lymph nodes). In the ROSE group, the percentages of the suspicious specimens on cytology and non-diagnostic specimens on pathology were both significantly lower than that in the non-ROSE group (8.7% vs. 14.6%, p = 0.038; and 0.9% vs. 4.4%, p = 0.018, respectively), and 13 out of 22 suspicious lesions on ROSE were confirmed with definite diagnoses on TBNA pathology. The diagnostic yield stratified by pathology was significantly higher in the ROSE group than that in the non-ROSE group (90.5% vs. 81.2%, p = 0.003). These results suggest that ROSE during EBUS-TBNA allows for a low rate of suspicious results and therefore improves the diagnostic yield stratified by pathology when sampling hilar or mediastinal lymphadenopathy in patients with lung cancer.