• Wei Yang and Bei He.
• Department of Respiratory Disease, Peking University Third Hospital, Beijing 100191, China.
• Zhonghua Yi Xue Za Zhi. 2009 Jan 13;89(2):109-13.

ObjectivesTo investigate the complication rate of lung biopsy in patients with idiopathic interstitial pneumonia (IIP) and the risk factors thereof.MethodsThe clinical data of 66 IIP patients underwent lung biopsy were analyzed. Of the 66 patients, 21 undergoing surgical lung biopsy (SLB) including open lung biopsy (OLB) (n = 11) and video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) (n = 10), and 45 patients undergoing biopsy other than SLB, including transbronchial lung biopsy (TBLB, n = 28) and CT or B mode ultrasonography-guided percutaneous transthoracic needle lung biopsy (n = 17).ResultsThe general postoperative complication rate was 40.9% (27/66), and the postoperative complication rate was 71.4% (15/21) in the SLB group, significantly higher than that of the non-SLB group (26.7%, 12/45, chi2 = 4.55, P = 0.03). The complications of the SLB group included prolonged air leakage (n = 10, 47.6%), pleural effusion (n = 5, 23.8%), acute pulmonary edema (n = 5, 23.8%), and postoperative pulmonary infection (n = 4, 19.0%), and the complications of the non-SLB group included pneumothorax after percutaneous transthoracic lung needle biopsy or TBLB (n = 12, 26.7%), acute exacerbation (AE) (n = 2, 4.4%), respiratory failure requiring mechanical ventilation for more than 72 h (n = 1, 2.2%), and postoperative pulmonary infection (n = 1, 2.2%). The predicted diffusing capacity of the lings for carbon monoxide (DLCO%) of the SLB group patients with postoperative complications was (46. 83 +/- 17.01)%, significantly higher than that of the SLB group patients without postoperative complication [(75.93 +/- 25.62)%, t = 2.55, P = 0.02]. However, there were not significant differences in the lung function and blood gas indexes among the patients undergoing different procedures of lung biopsy, with and without postoperative complications. Six of the 66 patents died within 90 postoperative days with a mortality of 9.1%, the causes of death of 3 of which were associated with lung biopsy.ConclusionsThe IIP patients undergoing SLB suffer from more postoperative complications than those undergoing other lung biopsy procedures with the lower DLCO% as the probable associated factor. AE in the IIP patients can be induced by CT-guided percutaneous transthoracic needle lung biopsy and TBLB, and results in death.

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