Dr. Fred Lee

Blood patching began to emerge in the early 2000’s as a technique to reduce the incidence of chest tube placements subsequent to pneumothoraces, and has since been adopted in lung biopsy procedures. Blood patching is a technique in which the operator introduces the patient's own blood into the pulmonary space to promote coagulation of air passages created upon biopsy.

CT guided lung biopsy can be quite challenging. There is a risk of injuring the many pulmonary and intercostal vessels, the time consuming process of sticking the nodule, and determining what patients are viable candidates. Abdominal radiologist Dr. Fred Lee discusses the techniques his practice has used to improve their CT guided lung biopsies.