Samsung Seoul Hospital Department of Pulmonology Achieves 15,000 Cases of Bronchoscopic Ultrasound Examinations

The Department of Pulmonology at Samsung Medical Center announced on the 11th that it held a ceremony to commemorate reaching 15,000 cases of endobronchial ultrasound (EBUS).

Ceremony Celebrating 15,000 Cases of Bronchoscopic Ultrasound Examinations by the Department of Pulmonology at Samsung Medical Center.
[Photo by Samsung Medical Center]

Samsung Medical Center, which introduced endobronchial ultrasound in 2009, surpassed 1,000 cumulative cases in 2012 and has been performing over 1,000 examinations annually since 2016, achieving 15,000 cases by the end of March this year.

Many lung cancer patients are diagnosed at a later stage, making it necessary to check for metastasis to the mediastinal lymph nodes. This area can be diagnosed through biopsy, which is confirmed using endobronchial ultrasound. EBUS is a method where a pulmonologist observes lymph nodes around the bronchi using an ultrasound probe attached to the tip of a bronchoscope and performs a needle biopsy. Compared to mediastinoscopy, which involves inserting an endoscope below the sternum under general anesthesia, EBUS allows examination of lymph nodes inside the lungs through the airway without incision and requires only conscious sedation, making it less burdensome.

The research team led by Professors Kim Ho-jung and Eom Sang-won from the Department of Pulmonology and Professor Kim Hong-kwan from the Department of Thoracic and Esophageal Surgery at Samsung Medical Center previously published findings showing that EBUS has higher accuracy than mediastinoscopy in actual lung cancer diagnosis. From March 2010 to May 2012, a prospective comparative study was conducted on 127 patients who underwent both EBUS and mediastinoscopy at Samsung Medical Center. The results showed that mediastinoscopy had a diagnostic sensitivity, accuracy, and negative predictive value of 81.3%, 89%, and 78.8%, respectively, whereas EBUS showed higher values of 88%, 92.9%, and 85.2%.

The safety of the procedure has also been proven. A team led by Professor Jung Byung-ho from the Department of Pulmonology reviewed 6,826 patients who underwent EBUS at Samsung Medical Center from 2009 to 2019 and found that infection-related complication rates were very rare at 0.48%. All these studies were published in international academic journals.

Based on these research results, the Department of Pulmonology at Samsung Medical Center performs EBUS as the standard examination for evaluating mediastinal lymph node metastasis before lung cancer surgery. Director Eom Sang-won of the Department of Pulmonology stated, "The examination methods are continuously becoming more detailed and safer for accurate lung cancer diagnosis," and added, "We will continue research for lung cancer diagnosis and treatment to conquer cancer."