Outcomes Bronchoscopic Evaluation in A University Hospital

Study of clinical profile of the patients and diagnostic yield of the selected bronchoscopic procedures gives us important information in clinical decision making and better patient care. There are hardly very few studies regarding these entities. Therefore, we decided to study clinical characteristics and outcomes of the patients who underwent bronchoscopic evaluation in our setting.

This was a cross-sectional study the consecutive patients who underwent bronchoscopy from 1st May 2013- 30th April 2015 in division of pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine. The main procedure performed was bronchoalveolar lavage.

The mean age was 54.71 years with 76 (76%) males. Recurrent hemoptysis in 58 (58%) patients were the commonest indication. Total 95 (95%) patients have chest X-ray abnormalities. The commonest bronchoscopic finding was bronchiectasis 23 (23%) of patients followed by chronic bronchitis in 18 (18%) and endobronchial tuberculosis in 16 (16%). Total 10 (71%) of the 14 bronchoscopically suspected lung cancer patients have intraluminal lesions. Bronchoalveolar lavage culture for tuberculosis showed growth in 46 (46%), positive for malignancy in 7 (7%) positive Ziehl Neelson stain for tuberculosis in 6 (6%).

Bronchoscopic evaluation of patients with pulmonary diseases gives us a lot of information that may help us in better patient care and bronchoalveolar lavage has high diagnostic yield in diagnosing pulmonary tuberculosis.