Clinical Value of CT-Guided Fine Needle Aspiration and Tissue-Core Biopsy of Thoracic Masses in the Dog and Cat

摘要

Diagnostic imaging is of paramount importance in the diagnosis of thoracic lesions. Radiology has traditionally been considered the diagnostic procedure of choice for these diseases in addition to a correct cytological and histopathologic diagnosis. In human medicine, Computed Tomography (CT) and CT-guided biopsy are used in the presence of lesions which are not adequately diagnosed with other procedures. In the present study, thoracic lesions from 52 dogs and 10 cats of different sex, breed and size underwent both CT-guided fine-needle aspiration (FNAB) and tissue-core biopsy (TCB). In this study, 59 of 62 histopathological samples were diagnostic (95.2%). Cytology was diagnostic in 43 of 62 samples (69.4%). General accuracy for FNAB and TCB were 67.7% and 95.2%, respectively. Combining the two techniques, the overall mean accuracy for diagnosis was 98.4%. CT-guided FNAB cytology can be considered a useful and reliable technique, especially for small lesions or lesions located close to vital organs and therefore dangerous to biopsy in any other way.