To assess the operative difficulty and safety of ultrasound guided transbronchial mediastinal cryobiopsy.

Randomly selected 25 patients with mediastinal diseases hospitalized in the Second Affiliated Hospital of the Army Military Medical University from October 2019 to December 2019, and assessed the size and location of the lesions, the relationship with the surrounding tissues, and the underlying diseases according to chest CT and other examinations before surgery. All patients received ultrasound bronchoscope guided transbronchial needle aspiration biopsy and mediastinal cryobiopsy sequentially. The operation time, intraoperative guidance, operation difficulty score and perioperative complications of the two methods were compared.

All patients successfully completed ultrasound bronchoscopy guided mediastinal biopsy. The total operation time of mediastinal biopsy guided by ultrasound bronchoscope was (31.9±7.6)minutes. There was no significant difference in the operation time between cryobiopsy and needle aspiration biopsy (8.7±1.8)minutes for needle aspiration biopsy vs.(9.3±4.3)minutes for cryobiopsy; P>0.05). In addition, there was no statistical difference in intraoperative guidance and operation difficulty scores between the two biopsy methods. No perioperative complications such as severe airway bleeding and mediastinal emphysema occurred in any patients.

Ultrasound bronchoscope guided transbronchial mediastinal cryobiopsy has no significant difference in operation difficulty compared with traditional needle aspiration biopsy, and is safe. It is a new method of mediastinal biopsy suitable for clinical development.