Prediction of malignancy in mediastinal lymph nodes during endobronchial ultrasound: A comparative validation study

Background: In this study, we aimed to compare the diagnostic performances of three existing prediction tools in visually identifying a malignant lymph node. Methods: Between April 2016 and January 2021, a total of 827 lymph nodes of 259 patients (211 males, 48 females; mean age: 61.1 +/- 7.2 years; range, 41 to 79 years) who underwent endobronchial ultrasound procedure for diagnosis and/or staging of lung cancer and diagnosis of mediastinal lymphadenopathy of unknown origin were retrospectively analyzed. This external validation study was designed to compare the diagnostic yields of the prediction tools developed by Shafiek et al., Alici et al., and Canada Lymph Node Score (CLNS). Endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration results and predictions were compared to gold- standard tool. Results: Overall, endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration had a sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive value, and accuracy of 95.6%, 100%, 100%, 97.6%, and 98.4%, respectively. Diagnostic performances of proposed tools were quite remarkable. Among them, Alici algorithm had a higher sensitivity and negative predictive value, which were matched by excellent specificity and positive predictive value offered by CLNS >= 3 and Shafiek tool. The area under the curve value of CLNS >= 3 was higher than Shafiek tool and CLNS >= 2. Conclusion: Conventional prediction tools relying on simple real-time sonographic features were found to be consistent by the means of diagnostic performance in this external validation dataset. Despite being inferior to cytology, their superior performance was proven with defined individual strengths and weaknesses.