Role of percutaneous fine needle aspiration in the diagnosis of lung cancer: our experience with 140 patients.

The authors have performed percutaneous fine needle aspiration (FNA) biopsy in 140 patients with pulmonary lesions of suspected neoplastic nature. In 63% of the cases histologic diagnosis could be made on the bioptic sample. Comparison of these findings with those obtained with conventional exfoliative cytology suggest that the latter technique gives higher percentage of histological characterization, it is free of complications and easier to perform. Thus, FNA appears to be an additional, irreplaceable tool when conventional methods fail to provide clear-cut information regarding the histologic nature of pulmonary lesions.