Table 4.
—Cumulative Incidence of Complications During the Entire Diagnostic Evaluation Per Patient
| Evaluation Inconsistent With Guidelines | |||||
| Complication | Evaluation Consistent With Guidelines, Mediastinal Sampling Done First | NSCLC Present, Mediastinal Sampling Performed Second or Later | NSCLC Present, Mediastinal Sampling Never Done | Small Cell Lung Cancer Present | P Valuea |
| No. patients | 3,155 | 4,659 | 5,881 | 1,621 | |
| Pneumothorax | 3.8 | 21.1 | 15.8 | 12.4 | < .001 |
| Pneumothorax requiring chest tube | 0.6 | 4.3 | 4.4 | 3.3 | < .001 |
| Hemorrhage | 5.4 | 10.5 | 1.1 | 1.2 | < .001b |
| Respiratory failure | 5.2 | 10.5 | 0.6 | 1.4 | < .001b |
Data are presented as percentages unless otherwise indicated. A single patient could have more than one complication. Percentages reflect the number of complications per 100 patients evaluated. See Table 1 legend for expansion of abbreviation.
a
Guideline-consistent group vs other groups.
b
Significant difference among the guideline-consistent group, guideline-inconsistent group with NSCLC and mediastinal sampling performed on the second or later invasive test, and guideline-inconsistent group without sampling (all P < .001).