[Ultrasound tomography and guided fine needle biopsy of intrathoracic space occupying lesions].
Pleural and pleural-based intrathoracic masses lead to a real sound transmission, thus allowing a sonomorphological diagnostic approach. Thoracic sonography is particularly helpful to evaluate the nature of pleural-based radiographic opacities. Moreover, fine needle biopsies guided by sonography permit cyto-histological diagnoses of intrathoracic masses. Ultrasound-guided fine needle biopsy was performed in 15 patients with pleural-based space-occupying pulmonary lesions. True positive results were obtained in 12 of the 15 patients with two true negative results and one false negative aspiration. The overall accuracy of aspiration cytology was 14 out of 15 (93.3%). In one patient a small pneumothorax occurred as a complication of the transthoracic needle approach.