A new lung biopsy technique was recently performed on a 52-year-old woman from Tirupati at Sri Ramachandra Hospital (SRH), Chennai on August 22. 

A SRH release on August 22 said the woman was suffering from a worsening interstitial lung disease and was diagnosed to have sarcoidosis using minimally invasive cryo lung biopsy with negligible blood loss. Traditionally lung biopsies were done in an operation theatre by a thoracic surgeon using an open technique or VATS which was highly 
invasive and very expensive. 

Cryotherapy uses -89°C icicles to freeze the lung tissue which was then extracted through the bronchoscopy placed inside the patients lungs. The lung tissue extracted through this procedure was large and adequate enough to establish diagnosis for diseases like alveolar and interstitial rpt interstitial lung diseases said, Dr Koushik Muthuraja, Interventional Pulmonologist, SRH, who along with Dr V R Pattabiraman, visiting interventional pulmonologist performed the procedure. The procedure was well tolerated by the patient and discharged the next day without any complications.