Infective complications from endobronchial ultrasound-transbronchial needle aspiration

To the Editors: We read with significant interest the report from Haas 1 in a recent issue of the European Respiratory Journal , which described two cases of infectious complications following endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration (EBUS-TBNA). This technique has been widely adopted for the evaluation of mediastinal and hilar lesions for several reasons, including its high-diagnostic accuracy, minimally invasive nature and excellent safety profile. As stated by Haas 1, no significant complications have previously been reported. We recently experienced a similar complication in our interventional bronchoscopy centre (Royal Melbourne Hospital, Parkville, Australia). A female with small cell lung cancer and a moderate-sized retrosternal thyroid lesion underwent EBUS-TBNA sampling of the thyroid lesion for the purpose of staging. …