Inclusion and exclusion criteria
malignancy, infectious underlying disease
METASTASIS, OPACITY
Adult patients (older than 18 years) were included if a lung biopsy was required for the diagnosis of a lung nodule of maximum 30 mm of diameter. Nodules could be either solid, part-solid or non-solid (ground glass opacity) without evidence of loco-regional or distant metastasis that could be biopsied, and no evidence for an infectious underlying disease. A multidisciplinary discussion was performed for each case before inclusion in the study in order to determine whether any other endoscopic or trans-thoracic procedure could be performed first, before considering ENB, or if patients should be referred directly to surgery.Indeed, patient eligible for a direct surgical resection of the nodule (growing lesion on serial imaging, nodules that measures > 8 mm in diameter with a high clinical probability of malignancy or PET positivity) were preferentially allocated to surgery [