Ultrasound in medicine & biology
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Ultrasound Med Biol · Dec 2014
Diagnostic impact of color Doppler ultrasound-guided core biopsy on fine-needle aspiration of anterior mediastinal masses.
Although lymphoma and thymoma are common etiologies of anterior mediastinal masses (AMMs), smaller percentages and numbers of patients with these diseases have been enrolled in previous ultrasound-guided biopsy studies. To date, there has been no study of color Doppler sonographic features to support the differentiation of AMMs. For this retrospective cohort study, a search of the database of the China Medical University Hospital using the clinical coding "ultrasound-guided biopsy" was conducted for the period December 2003 to February 2013. ⋯ Ultrasound-guided CNB of AMMs had an accuracy of ≤ 89% in diagnosis and subclassification. Fine-needle aspiration cytology itself cannot aid in the diagnosis. Color Doppler sonographic evaluation of AMMs followed by real-time CNB is a more efficient method.