• A Gürses, A Turna, M A Bedirhan, T Ozalp, C Kocatürk, A Demir, M Ozcan, and N Urer.
• Yedikule Hospital for Chest Disease and Thoracic Surgery, Istanbul, Turkey.
• Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 2002 Jun 1;50(3):174-7.

BackgroundThe efficacy of mediastinal lymph node examination using cervical mediastinoscopy in operable non-small cell lung cancer patients without radiological nodal involvement on computerized tomography (CT) has been elusive.MethodsThe value of mediastinoscopy as a staging modality for assessing the mediastinal lymph node status was evaluated in 79 patients with presumed resectable non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with mediastinal nodes smaller than 1 cm (NO) form the CT scan. Sixty-one patients who did not have nodal involvement at mediastinoscopy and had complete medical records underwent complete resection.ResultsNegative predictive value (NPV) of the CT scan according to mediastinoscopy was 92.4 %. Histopathological examination of the surgical specimen showed the NPV of mediastinoscopy to be 93.4 %. Only 4 patients (3 patients with N2, 1 patient with N3 disease) were not correctly staged using CT scanning and mediastinoscopy. According to the pathological examination, the NPV of CT was found to be lower (76.5 %) in patients with adenocarcinoma, but the difference was not statistically significant (p > 0.128)ConclusionAlthough the likelihood of surgical-pathological N2 is slightly higher in patients with adenocarcinoma, radiological examination of patients with cNO NSCLC disease can be as accurate as mediastinoscopy in appropriately staging mediastinal lymph node involvement.

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