A prospective comparison of fiberoptic endobronchial needle aspiration, bronchial brushing, and forceps biopsy for the diagnoses of canine exophytic tracheal and endobronchial masses, and submucosal infiltrations

Objectives: To compare the diagnostic yield of endobronchial Wang™ needle aspiration to that of bronchial brushing and forceps biopsy for canine tracheal and endobronchial masses and submucosal infiltrations examined by fiberoptic bronchoscopy. Materials and Methods: Flexible fiberoptic bronchoscope-­ guided bronchial brushing, forceps biopsy, and endobronchial Wang™ needle aspiration were performed consecutively in dogs with exophytic airway masses or submucosal infiltrations. The diagnostic performances of the three techniques were com- pared to surgical or necropsy histopathology, as the gold standard. We determined the diagnostic sen- sitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, accuracy, and 95% confidence interval of each technique. Results: Twenty-­ one dogs were included. Endobronchial Wang™ needle aspiration accurately identi- fied malignancy in 90.48% of cases, forceps biopsy in 80.95%, and bronchial brushing in 52.38%. Of the 21 cases, agreement in the final morphological tumour type was obtained in 19 (90%), 15 (71%), and 8 (38%) using endobronchial Wang™ needle aspiration, forceps biopsy, and bronchial brushing, respectively. Endobronchial Wang™ needle aspiration had the highest sensitivity and accuracy (94% and 90%, respectively; 95% CI: +0.99/−0.89) when used both alone and in combination with the other techniques. Clinical Significance: Endobronchial Wang™ needle aspiration alone or in combination with other tech- niques may be promising for obtaining the highest diagnostic yield for canine tracheal or bronchial mucosal abnormalities.