An entertaining debate on whether cryobiopsy is an essential diagnostic tool for a tertiary ILD service ultimately went unanswered at the TSANZSRS meeting, as there was no audience vote.
Associate Professor Chris Grainge, from the Hunter Medical Research Institute, did his best to convince delegates that transbronchial lung cryobiopsy was ‘quicker, cheaper, better and safer’ than video-assisted thoracoscopic surgical (VATS) lung biopsy.
He said the 30-day mortality of 2.4% after a VATS biopsy was hardly impressive for an elective, diagnostic procedure.
He referenced a recent systematic review and meta-analysis that found cryobiopsies had a good diagnostic yield of 72.9% and had an overall reported mortality of 0.3%.
The meta-analysis found the overall complication rate following cryobiopsy was 23.1%, with bleeding (14.2%) and pneumothorax (9.4%) the most commonly reported events.
It also concluded that further research was needed to help standardise the procedure between centres and improve its safety profile.