Comparing Pulmonary Nodule Location During Electromagnetic Bronchoscopy With Predicted Location on the Basis of Two Virtual Airway Maps at Different Phases of Respiration

Background Electromagnetic navigational bronchoscopy (ENB) is guided bronchoscopy to pulmonary nodules (PN) that relies on a preprocedural chest CT to create a three-dimensional (3D) virtual airway map. The CT is traditionally done at a full inspiratory breath hold (INSP), but the procedure is performed while the patient tidal breaths, when lung volumes are closer to functional residual capacity. Movement of a PN from INSP to expiration (EXP) has been shown to average 17.6 mm. Therefore, the hypothesis of this study is that preprocedural virtual maps built off a CT closer to physiological lung volumes during bronchoscopy may better represent the actual 3D location of a PN. Methods Consecutive patients with a PN needing a histological diagnosis were enrolled. A preprocedure INSP and EXP CT scan were obtained to create two virtual maps. During the airway inspection, the system tracked the sensor probe to collect 3D points that were reconstructed into the lumen registration map. This map is thought to best represent the patient's airways during bronchoscopy. Predicted PN location on an EXP and INSP map was compared with lumen registration. Results Twenty consecutive PN underwent ENB. The predicted PN location, compared with lumen registration, was significantly closer on EXP vs INSP (4.5 mm ± 3.3 mm vs 14.8 mm ± 9.7 mm; p < 0.0001). Conclusions Predicted 3D nodule location using an EXP scan for ENB is significantly closer to actual nodule location when compared with an INSP scan, but whether this leads to increased yields needs to be determined.