Characterization of mediastinal lymph node physiology in vivo by optical spectroscopy during endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration.

Introduction: Esophageal endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration (EUS-FNA) is a minimally invasive staging procedure for mediastinal lymph nodes in patients diagnosed with lung cancer. But, a substantial false negative rate necessitates that patients returning a negative EUS-FNA result must undergo a subsequent surgical staging procedure. This study incorporates a fiberoptic reflectance spectroscopy device into the EUS-FNA procedure to asses the vascular physiology within the sampled lymph node.