Percutaneous needle washing for the diagnosis of pulmonary thin-walled cavitary lesions filled with air.

Objective: It is difficult to obtain sufficient material from pulmonary thin-walled cavitary lesions filled with air by conventional percutaneous aspiration biopsy in order to make a diagnosis. In these cases, we performed percutaneous needle washing (PNW) and ascertained the diagnostic significance of this method.

Materials And Methods: PNW was performed on 27 patients with a pulmonary thin-walled cavitary lesion whose diagnosis could not be made by sputum and bronchoscopic examinations.