• Carlos Disdier, Elena Bollo, Pilar Morales, and Carmen Montero.
• Hospital San Pedro de Alcántara, Cáceres, España. cdisdier@separ.es
• Arch. Bronconeumol. 2009 Jan 1; 45 Suppl 1: 39-42.

AbstractA review has been made of original articles on invasive pneumology techniques, interstitial diseases and lung transplantation, published in the Archivos de Bronconeumología during the year 2008. We have selected the publication by Martínez-Olondrins et al on the mediastinal staging of bronchogenic carcinoma by transbronchial needle aspiration to highlight the role of this simple, safe and cost-effective technique at a time when aspiration by ultrasound-guided bronchoscopy is profiled as an alternative to staging by mediastinoscopy. Besides its usefulness in the study of lymph nodes, transbronchial needle aspiration increases the overall performance of bronchoscopy by 20%, which means that it should be considered as a basic tool in the study of lung cancer. We also comment on the work by Galvis-Caravajal et al, who describe percutaneous radiofrequency as an alternative to radiotherapy in small lung or metastasic tumours. In diffuse interstitial disease, Morell et al analysed the diagnostic methods in 500 patients with this clinical-radiological presentation in which a definitive diagnosis was achieved in 85%, with 25% of them being obtained by non-invasively. Baloira et al analysed the characteristics of 19 patients with desquamative interstitial pneumonia and respiratory bronchiolitis associated-interstitial lung disease obtained from the National register of Interstitial Diseases.

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