The bleeding risk and safety of repeated bronchoscopies with tissue sampling in patients with pulmonary lesions

Many patients need repeated bronchoscopies with tissue sampling to obtain the final pathological results and guide the optimal subsequent treatment of pulmonary lesions. However, few studies have explored the safety of repeated biopsies.

The records of patients who underwent bronchoscopy-guided tissue sampling because of pulmonary lesions at the respiratory department between 1 January 2008 and 31 December 2019 were revised. The patients' clinical characteristics, information about bronchoscopy and incidence of complications were collected and analyzed.

In total, 3899 bronchoscopy-guided tissue sampling procedures were conducted in the 1781 participants. There was no significant difference in the incidence of major complications between the initial bronchoscopies and repeated bronchoscopies (1.12% vs. 1.13%, χ² < 0.01, df = 1, p = 0.98), as was the incidence of hemoptysis (χ² = 2.18, df = 1, p = 0.14). However, the bleeding rate of patients who experienced bleeding during the first bronchoscopies was significantly higher than that of patients who did not experience bleeding (61.19% vs. 32.63%, χ² = 253.00, df = 1, p < 0.01).

For patients with pulmonary lesions, re-bronchoscopy with tissue sampling appears to infer the same risk of bleeding including severe bleeding as experienced during the initial bronchoscopy. However, it should be treated with discretion when performing repeated tissue sampling on patients who once bled.