Mediastinoscopy: looking beyond lung cancer staging

While staging of lung cancer remains the leading indication for the use of mediastinoscopy, its utility is equally applicable to diagnosis of mediastinal lesions unrelated to bronchogenic carcinoma (1,2). The authors present a multitude of disease processes presenting with mediastinal adenopathy where obtaining tissue diagnosis is paramount. For these patients, as presented by the authors, expeditious diagnosis prevents further unnecessary evaluation and allows appropriate treatment initiation, few of which are surgical.