Accuracy of fine needle aspiration and core lung biopsies to predict histology in patients with non-small cell lung cancer

Management of advanced non-small cell lung cancer patients is dependent on the histologic diagnosis for both testing and treatment. This study was designed to determine the ability of fine needle aspiration and core biopsies to correctly determine histologic diagnosis in non-small cell lung cancer. Our institutional cardiothoracic surgery database was reviewed for cases of non-small cell lung cancer treated with lobectomy after a preoperative biopsy by CT guidance or bronchoscopy over a 10-year period from 2002 to 2011. The histologic diagnosis of the final lobectomy specimen was compared to the histologic diagnosis from the preoperative biopsy, and the concordance rate was calculated. 119 biopsy specimens from 117 patients were reviewed. Eighty of the 119 biopsies had the same histologic diagnosis as the lobectomy specimen, yielding an overall concordance rate of 67.2 %. Patients with poorly differentiated tumors were at the highest risk of an incorrect histologic diagnosis on preoperative biopsy. Reliance on fine needle aspiration and core biopsies to determine histologic diagnosis in non-small cell lung cancer may put some patients at risk for suboptimal treatment.