Nonvascular Interventional Radiology of the Thorax

Transthoracic biopsy of pulmonary and mediastinal lesions is a commonly performed diagnostic procedure. It is used to confirm malignancy in anticipation of appropriate therapy or to spare patients with benign disease from unnecessary surgery. In the following, space limitations prohibit a detailed discussion of techniques and complications; instead, the reader is referred to several reviews of this topic for details [1-5]. Current areas of interest include the use of alternate image-guidance methods, such as real-time ultrasound for peripheral lung lesions and cone-beam computed tomography (CT) [6, 7]; integrated navigational systems for guidance [8]; methods to decrease the rate of post-procedural pneumothorax [9]: and the procurement of tissue for genomic analysis [10].