E- Predict: EBUS ELASTOGRAPHY STRAIN in Lung Cancer (E-PREDICT)

Patients will undergo a routine EBUS and/or EUS or EUSb with Pentax series EBUS or EUS scopes in combination with Hitachi Preirus Hi-Vision ultrasound processor with installed elastography software. Normal international guidelines for staging, diagnosis and specimen acquisition will be followed. For a normal evaluation B-mode measurements from all lymph node regions are obtained assessing size and standard ultrasound characteristics and all lymph nodes in the regions of interest that meet the criteria for fine needle aspiration will be sampled. For this study, in addition to the normal B-mode assessment of five sonographic B-mode characteristics elastography strain graph video, elastography image, and a strain histogram from the region of interest will be obtained.

Fine needle aspiration for cytology evaluation will be obtained from nodes based on imaging characteristics or standard sonography characteristics following current everyday clinical practice and the international guidelines. Subsequently, the patient charts will be retrospectively analysed after completion of the diagnostic and/or surgical treatment of the (suspected) lung cancer to match the obtained imaging data to pathology results (cytology and or histology where present) and clinical follow up until 6 months after the diagnostic procedure.