Incidence of complications in bronchoscopy. Multicentre prospective study of 20,986 bronchoscopies

Submitted: January 22, 2016
Accepted: January 22, 2016
Published: January 25, 2016
Abstract Views: 2772
PDF: 1442
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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 NDYAG 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.

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Facciolongo, N., M. Patelli, S. Gasparini, L. Lazzari Agli, M. Salio, C. Simonassi, B. Del Prato, and P. Zanoni. 2016. “Incidence of Complications in Bronchoscopy. Multicentre Prospective Study of 20,986 Bronchoscopies”. Monaldi Archives for Chest Disease 71 (1). https://doi.org/10.4081/monaldi.2009.370.