Early Online Release

Transbronchial Lung Cryobiopsy for Interstitial Lung Disease Diagnosis: A Perspective From Members of the Pulmonary Pathology Society

Kirtee Raparia , MD; Dara L. Aisner , MD; Timothy Craig Allen , MD, JD; Mary Beth Beasley , MD; Alain Borczuk , MD; Philip T. Cagle ,MD; Vera Capelozzi , MD, PhD; Sanja Dacic , MD, PhD; Lida P. Hariri , MD, PhD; Keith M. Kerr , BSc, MB, ChB, FRCPath, FRCPE;Sylvie Lantuejoul , MD, PhD; Mari Mino-Kenudson , MD; Natasha Rekhtman , MD, PhD; Anja C. Roden , MD; Sinchita Roy-Chowdhuri , MD, PhD; Lynette Sholl , MD; Maxwell L. Smith , MD; Eric Thunnissen , MD, PhD; Ming Sound Tsao , MD; Yasushi Yatabe, MD, PhD

From the Department of Pathology, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois (Dr Raparia); the Department of Pathology, University of Colorado Cancer Center, Denver (Dr Aisner); the Department of Pathology, The University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston (Dr Allen); the Department of Pathology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York (Dr Beasley); the Department of Pathology, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, New York (Drs Borczuk and Cagle); the Department of Pathology and Genomic Medicine, Houston Methodist Hospital, Houston, Texas (Dr Cagle); the Department of Pathology, University of Sao Paulo Medical School, Sao Paulo, Brazil (Dr Capelozzi); the Department of Pathology, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (Dr Dacic); the Department of Pathology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston (Drs Hariri and Mino-Kenudson); the Department of Pathology, Aberdeen University Medical School and Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, Foresterhill, Aberdeen, Scotland, United Kingdom (Dr Kerr); the Department of Biopathology, Centre Léon Bérard, Lyon, and J Fourier University–INSERM U 823-Institut A Bonniot, Grenoble, France (Dr Lantuejoul); the Department of Pathology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York (Dr Rekhtman); the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, Mayo Clinic Rochester, Rochester, Minnesota (Dr Roden); the Department of Pathology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston (Dr Roy-Chowdhuri); the Department of Pathology, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts (Dr Sholl); the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, Mayo Clinic Scottsdale, Scottsdale, Arizona (Dr Smith); the Department of Pathology, VU Medical Center, Amsterdam, the Netherlands (Dr Thunnissen); the Department of Pathology, University Health Network, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (Dr Tsao); and the Department of Pathology and Molecular Diagnostics, Aichi Cancer Center, Nagoya, Japan (Dr Yatabe).

Reprints: Timothy Craig Allen, MD, JD, Department of Pathology, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX 77555 (email:tcallen@utmb.edu).

Transbronchial lung cryobiopsy involves using a cryoprobe rather than forceps to obtain a bronchoscopic biopsy. Recent studies have shown that transbronchial cryobiopsy provides a larger specimen than conventional transbronchial forceps biopsy, and that the interobserver agreement in the interpretation of cryobiopsy specimens is comparable to that of a surgical lung biopsy. This is encouraging, and transbronchial lung cryobiopsy clearly has a role in the workup and diagnosis of interstitial lung diseases. However, very few patients who have been studied underwent both transbronchial lung cryobiopsy and surgical lung biopsy, and the available data suggest that the diagnostic accuracy of cryobiopsy may not be similar to that of surgical lung biopsy. Further study is needed before transbronchial lung biopsy can be recommended as a replacement for surgical lung biopsy.