2020, Vol. 2, Issue 1, Part A

Materials and Methods: The present study was carried out on 32 patients attending the OPD of Respiratory Medicine at Hamdard Institute of Medical Sciences and Research. Patients who had persistent opacities in form of collapse in chest radiography were subjected to detailed clinical history, physical examination and routine investigations followed by fiberoptic bronchoscopy provided they met the criteria of our study.

Results: The age of the patients varied from 18 to 75 years and the male: female ratio was 3:1. Malignant causes were diagnosed in 18 (56.25%) out of total 32 cases on bronchial biopsy, 10 cases (31.25%) showed inflammatory changes and in 4 cases significant pathology could not be established through bronchoscopy. Bronchial washing showed 11 true positive, 7 true negative, 3 false positive and 11 false negative cases whereas bronchial brushing showed 18 true positive, 10 true negative, 1 false positive and 3 false negative cases, as confirmed on biopsy. Bronchial brushing showed good sensitivity (85.71%) and specificity (90.90%) compared to bronchial washing which had sensitivity of 53.28% and specificity of 70%.

Conclusions: We conclude that fiberoptic bronchoscopy with bronchial brushing was found to be extremely useful in finding specific etiology of lung collapse.