From 1967 to 1974, 182 biopsies of lung cancer have been performed with the small-bore needle which we have designed for cytological diagnosis.
In 146 out of 182 cases of pulmonary carcinoma (80.2%) an accurate diagnosis was obtained by this method. We experienced one case of the development of a tumor in the needle tract, one year and seven months after performance of needle biopsy on an adenocarcinoma case with a 2×2cm nodular lesion in the right S3, which was radically resected. At that time, of course, neither cancer invasion to the pleura, lymphnode metastasis nor hematogenous metastasis could be seen. This case of implantation of tumor cells in the needle tract out of 10 early stage lung cancer cases with nodular lesions less than 2cm in diameter, successfully diagnosed by needle biopsy and radically resected, indicates that needle biopsy method should be employed in certain cases, in which other diagnostic procedures failed to obtain an accurate diagnosis and also that some steps should be taken to prevent such compli cations, for example chest wall irradiation.