AIM: To evaluate the frequency of complications in bronchoscopy from data compiled between 1/2/2002 to 1/2/2003. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Nineteen Italian centres of thoracic endoscopy participated in the study, for a total of 20,986 bronchoscopies (FBS), including 10,658 explorative bronchoscopies (EB) (50.79%), 5,520 bronchial biopsies (BB) (26.30%), 1,660 transbronchial biopsies (TBB) (7.91%), 1,127 broncho-alveolar lavages (BAL) (5.37%), 930 transbronchial needle-aspirates (TBNA) (4.43%), 1.091 therapeutic bronchoscopies (TB), comprising ND-YAG Laser, argon-plasma, electrocautery knife, stent insertion (5.20%). 82.4% of the procedures involved the use of a flexible bronchoscope, 16.3% were carried out using a rigid bronchoscope and 1.3% using the mixed technique. RESULTS: The total number of complications recorded was 227 (1.08% of the cases examined), including 20 (0.09%) during local anesthesia and pre-medication, 195 (0.92%) during the endoscopic procedures and 12 (0.05%) in the two hours following FBS. The total number of deaths was 4 (0.02%), due to cardiac arrest, pulmonary edema, delayed respiratory failure and shock in pre-medication, respectively. 68.28% of the complications were treated medically, 25.99% by means of endoscopy and 5.72% with surgery. The healing percentage was 98.2%. CONCLUSIONS: This study has shown that bronchoscopy is a safe method with low incidence of mortality and complications. The preparation, experience and continuous training of the operators of the medical and nursing team seem to play a fundamental role in reducing the incidence of complications at least in certain procedures such as BB and TBB.
AIM: To evaluate the frequency of complications in bronchoscopy from data compiled between 1/2/2002 to 1/2/2003. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Nineteen Italian centres of thoracic endoscopy participated in the study, for a total of 20,986 bronchoscopies (FBS), including 10,658 explorative bronchoscopies (EB) (50.79%), 5,520 bronchial biopsies (BB) (26.30%), 1,660 transbronchial biopsies (TBB) (7.91%), 1,127 broncho-alveolar lavages (BAL) (5.37%), 930 transbronchial needle-aspirates (TBNA) (4.43%), 1.091 therapeutic bronchoscopies (TB), comprising ND-YAG Laser, argon-plasma, electrocautery knife, stent insertion (5.20%). 82.4% of the procedures involved the use of a flexible bronchoscope, 16.3% were carried out using a rigid bronchoscope and 1.3% using the mixed technique. RESULTS: The total number of complications recorded was 227 (1.08% of the cases examined), including 20 (0.09%) during local anesthesia and pre-medication, 195 (0.92%) during the endoscopic procedures and 12 (0.05%) in the two hours following FBS. The total number of deaths was 4 (0.02%), due to cardiac arrest, pulmonary edema, delayed respiratory failure and shock in pre-medication, respectively. 68.28% of the complications were treated medically, 25.99% by means of endoscopy and 5.72% with surgery. The healing percentage was 98.2%. CONCLUSIONS: This study has shown that bronchoscopy is a safe method with low incidence of mortality and complications. The preparation, experience and continuous training of the operators of the medical and nursing team seem to play a fundamental role in reducing the incidence of complications at least in certain procedures such as BB and TBB.
Authors: Erik E Folch; Amit K Mahajan; Catherine L Oberg; Fabien Maldonado; Eric Toloza; William S Krimsky; Scott Oh; Mark R Bowling; Sadia Benzaquen; Charles M Kinsey; Atul C Mehta; Sebastian Fernandez-Bussy; Javier Flandes; Kelvin Lau; Ganesh Krishna; Michael A Nead; Felix Herth; Alejandro A Aragaki-Nakahodo; Emanuela Barisione; Sandeep Bansal; Dragos Zanchi; Michael Zgoda; Peter O Lutz; Robert J Lentz; Christopher Parks; Mario Salio; Kenneth Perret; Colleen Keyes; Gregory P LeMense; John D Hinze; Adnan Majid; Merete Christensen; Jordan Kazakov; Gonzalo Labarca; Ernest Waller; Michael Studnicka; Catalina V Teba; Sandeep J Khandhar Journal: Chest Date: 2020-02-14 Impact factor: 9.410