# A prospective comparison of fiberoptic endobronchial needle aspiration, bronchial brushing, and forceps biopsy for the diagnoses of canine exophytic tracheal and endobronchial masses, and submucosal infiltrations

## TL;DR

This study compares three techniques for diagnosing airway masses in dogs, finding that endobronchial needle aspiration is the most accurate.

## Contribution

The study introduces a novel comparison of endobronchial Wang™ needle aspiration against traditional methods in veterinary diagnostics.

## Key findings

- Endobronchial Wang™ needle aspiration identified malignancy in 90.48% of cases.
- Endobronchial Wang™ needle aspiration had higher agreement in tumor type diagnosis compared to other methods.
- Combining endobronchial needle aspiration with other techniques improved diagnostic accuracy.

## Abstract

To compare the diagnostic yield of endobronchial Wang™ needle aspiration to that of bronchial brushing and forceps biopsy for canine tracheal and endobronchial masses and submucosal infiltrations examined by fiberoptic bronchoscopy.

Flexible fiberoptic bronchoscope‐guided bronchial brushing, forceps biopsy, and endobronchial Wang™ needle aspiration were performed consecutively in dogs with exophytic airway masses or submucosal infiltrations. The diagnostic performances of the three techniques were compared to surgical or necropsy histopathology, as the gold standard. We determined the diagnostic sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, accuracy, and 95% confidence interval of each technique.

Twenty‐one dogs were included. Endobronchial Wang™ needle aspiration accurately identified malignancy in 90.48% of cases, forceps biopsy in 80.95%, and bronchial brushing in 52.38%. Of the 21 cases, agreement in the final morphological tumour type was obtained in 19 (90%), 15 (71%), and 8 (38%) using endobronchial Wang™ needle aspiration, forceps biopsy, and bronchial brushing, respectively. Endobronchial Wang™ needle aspiration had the highest sensitivity and accuracy (94% and 90%, respectively; 95% CI: +0.99/−0.89) when used both alone and in combination with the other techniques.

Endobronchial Wang™ needle aspiration alone or in combination with other techniques may be promising for obtaining the highest diagnostic yield for canine tracheal or bronchial mucosal abnormalities.