2.1 Patients
This was an institutional review board approved retrospective analysis
of ultrasound guided PCNB performed in the Surgical Oncology Department
at Beijing Children’s Hospital from August 1st 2012 to January 31st
2019. Those whose PCNB pathology indicates non-surgical treatment such
as inoperable malignant diseases (of which lymphoma comprised a large
portion) and certain benign conditions were excluded. Those who chose to
be treated elsewhere were also excluded as their final surgical
pathologies were not traceable or obtained. Only patients whose PCNB
reports indicating operations and received surgery in our department
were included. Medical records were reviewed for patient demographics,
the anatomical location of the tumor biopsy specimen, the method of
tumor biopsy, pathology, and complications. Unfortunately, the number of
cores taken for core needle biopsies and the gauge of needles were not
always recorded. Therefore, we did not take the two variables into
analysis in this study. Final surgical pathological diagnoses were used
as the gold standard to assess the diagnostic efficiency of PCNB. The
PCNB pathology and surgical pathology were analyzed for diagnostic test
statistics. The flowchart of patient selection is shown in Fig. 1.