A fatal case of post endobronchial ultrasound transbronchial needle aspiration endobronchial haemorrhage: a case report and review of the literature

Notwithstanding life-threatening haemorrhagic complications, endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration represents a cornerstone in the evaluation of NSCLC patients. Due to its low invasiveness and satisfactory tolerability even in high-risk patients, it is usually scheduled in one-day surgery hospital stay. Moreover, EBUS-TBNA offers a viable alternative to other conventional endoscopic procedures such as mediastinoscopy with the addiction to gain access also to hilar nodes. We report an unexpected and rare event of post-bronchoscopy fatal endobronchial haemorrhage in a 67-year-old female patient with a right S1 solitary pulmonary nodule and concomitant multiple bilateral lymphadenopaties. According to clinical staging the patient was unfit for upfront surgery and endoscopic procedure for tissue diagnosis was scheduled. The immediate postoperative period was uneventful as no intraoperative injuries were reported. Twenty-four hours later, the patient claimed respiratory distress and, after admission to the Emergency Department, a massive and uncontrolled bleeding coming from the lower respiratory tract was diagnosed leading to a death. Although one-day surgery EBUS-TBNA is the standard of care in patients undergoing endoscopic exploration, current guidelines seem to be murky about proper case stratification in order to plan an exhaustive observation time especially in high-risk patients.