Fiber-optic bronchoscopy: seven-year experience at Nepal Medical College Teaching Hospital

Fiber-optic bronchoscopy is a safe and useful diagnostic and therapeutic tool for the management of the pulmonary diseases. The purpose of this study was to find out the demographic profiles, indications, bronchoscopic findings, and diagnoses of the patients who underwent bronchoscopic examination. Retrospective analysis of 231 consecutive bronchoscopies done in Nepal Medical College Teaching Hospital over the period of seven years (January 2003 to January 2010) was done. The commonest indication was radiological opacity (90.2%), followed by diffuse pulmonary infiltrates (4.3%). Cough was the commonest presenting symptom seen in 89.8% of the patients. 79.7% of the patients were smokers and the history of smoking among the patients diagnosed to have lung cancer was 94%. The commonest bronchoscopic finding was endobronchial growth (47.8%). Histopathological examination revealed malignancy in 53.8% of the patients, of which small cell lung cancer was 22.8% and non small cell lung cancer 77.2%. Even when growth was not visualized on bronchoscopy, biopsies attempted from the segments with radiological abnormality established the diagnosis of malignancy in 10.16%, pulmonary tuberculosis in 5.1% and Sarcoidosis in 2.2% of the cases.