Adequacy of endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration samples processed as histopathological samples for genetic mutation analysis in lung adenocarcinoma.

Phenotyping non-small-cell lung cancer is becoming increasingly important with the advent of molecular testing. Tumours harbouring somatic mutations in the gene that encodes for the tyrosine kinase domain of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) have been found to increase responsiveness to tyrosine kinase inhibitors. Endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration (EBUS-TBNA) is a minimally invasive technique for mediastinal node sampling.