Concordance between sequential transbronchial lung cryobiopsy and surgical lung biopsy in patients with diffuse interstitial lung disease

Abstract Background Increasing evidence indicates the utility of transbronchial lung cryobiopsy (TBLC) for the diagnosis of interstitial lung disease (ILD). However, only one study has compared TBLC and surgical lung biopsy (SLB) performed on the same patients. Methods We identified seven patients with ILD with TBLC and SLB. We evaluated the clinical characteristics and made a pathological diagnosis based on the official ATS/ERS/JRS/ALAT clinical practice guideline of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis with both TBLC and SLB. Results Six cases were diagnosed as Usual interstitial pneumonia (UIP) in both TBLC and SLB. One case was diagnosed as indeterminate for UIP with TBLC and probable UIP with SLB. Etiological diagnosis with TBLC and SLB were concordant in 2 cases of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) but discordant for other diagnoses. Major histological findings of UIP including dense fibrosis, peripheral distribution, and fibroblastic foci showed high concordance between TBLC and SLB, which implies that TBLC can reliably detect these features. In contrast, loose fibrosis, cellular infiltration, and airway disease showed poor concordance between the two methods. Conclusion Our study showed that TBLC is useful for UIP diagnosis but not for other ILD. With a multidisciplinary approach, diagnosis of IPF may be determined by TBLC, whereas ILD other than IPF may require SLB.