ENDOSCOPIC ULTRASONOGRAPHY OF MEDIASTINAL DISEASES

Introduction: Mediastinal diseases are mostly diagnosed by CT and MRI. The applicability of ultrasound is limited by the surrounding air- an d bone-containing thorax, which permits only restricted echo windows. Transesophageal endoscopic ultrasonography circumvents this problem an d ensures visualization of parts of the mediastinum. Patients and meth ods: We report our results in 38 patients with pathological mediastina l findings who were examined by endoscopic ultrasound between 1988 and 1993. The diagnoses were established by imaging and/or histological p rocedures. Results: The following mediastinal diseases were diagnosed in 38 patients: aberrant right subclavian artery (n = 3), right aortic arch (n = 1), aortic aneurysm (n = 6), cysts (n = 4), retrosternal st ruma (n = 3), mediastinal lymph node tuberculosis (n = 1), Hodgkin's/n on-Hodgkin's lymphomas (n = 11), lymph node involvement in bronchogeni c carcinoma (n = 8), mediastinal imflammatory fibrosarcoma (n = 1). Al together, 37/38 pathological findings were demonstrated endosonographi cally. Conclusions: The results in this small group of patients with p athological mediastinal findings show that endoscopic ultrasound can g ive additional information to conventional imaging methods. A prospect ive comparative study is necessary to evaluate this procedure in compa rison to the established imaging techniques.