Thin-needle aspiration biopsy: methods of increasing the accuracy of a negative prediction.

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Abstract
Consecutive patients (164) were studied prospectively in the hope of increasing the accuracy of a negative prediction of transthoracic thin-needle biopsy. The protocol included pre-biopsy imaging with conventional and computed tomography, repeated sampling if no malignant cells were found, and specialized staining and culture methods. Patients (44) with no evidence of malignant cells were divided into benign specific [25] and benign nonspecific groups [19]. A variety of bacterial and fungal infections, benign tumors and other benign specific diagnoses were made. The accuracy of a negative prediction for the benign specific group was 1.00 (100%), while that for the benign nonspecific group varied from 84 to 95% depending on whether the 2 patients lost to follow-up had benign disease.