FIGURE 1.

Flowchart of the study. Patients admitted to the institute underwent MDD1 after history collection, serological testing, spirometry and HRCT. A decision was made whether to perform a biopsy and which method (UT-VATS or TBLC) to utilize, the latter based on radiological features of lesions as well as respiratory compromise of patients. MDD2 was held with pathological reports available. Stratification of pathological results was performed based on specificity as well as their contribution to the final MDD diagnosis. MDD: multidisciplinary discussion, HRCT: high resolution computed tomography. UT-VATS: uniportal and tubeless-video-assisted thoracic surgery, TBLC: transbronchial lung cryobiopsy, FVC: forced vital capacity, DL_CO: carbon-monoxide diffusion coefficient.