53 The role of endobronchial ultrasound guided transbronchial needle aspiration

required significantly lower levels of sedation (p < 0.000001) but had similar overall complication rates (<70 yrs 8.7% vs. 70 yrs 5.1%; p = 0.13) and tolerated the procedure better than younger patients (p = 0.036). Sensitivity (92.9% vs. 86.4%; p = 0.12) was equivalent, but NPV (91.8% vs. 73.9%; p = 0.001) and diagnostic accuracy (96.0% vs. 90.2%; p = 0.02) of nodal sampling in patients with confirmed or suspected lung cancer (n = 273) was higher in the 70 yrs cohort (n = 131, 48.0%). However the prevalence of nodal malignancy was significantly different between the two groups as was the proportion of patients subject to surgical lymph node sampling following negative EBUS-TBNA. EBUS-TBNA samples produced low NSCLC-NOS rates (6.9%) and high levels of successful EGFR mutation analysis (97.5%) irrespective of age category. Conclusion: EBUS is a safe and well-tolerated procedure in elderly patients that facilitates accurate pathological diagnosis and minimally invasive staging in patients with lung cancer.