Abstract

Bronchiectasis (BE) still keeps its importance as a chronic respiratory tract disease in developing countries like ours despite its declining incidence in developed countries. This study is aimed to evaluate the clinical characteristics of our BE patients. Fifty BE patients followed up in our Allergy and Pulmonology Out-patient Clinics during 1995-2004 was retrospectively investigated. Their ages, genders, complaints on admission and how long they persisted, physical findings, etiological laboratory investigations, chest radiographic and computarized tomographic (CT) findings, and follow-up periods were recorded. Forty percent of the patients were female and 60% were male. Average age of admission was 6.9±3.5 years (0.6-14.4 years). The most frequent causes of BE were found to be previous pneumonic illness (%34), reactive airway disease (%22), tuberculosis (20%). Cough (54.3%) and fever (48.5%) were the most frequently identified symptoms. BE diagnosis was suggested in only two of the patients with a chest radiograph, and all were diagnosed with CT. The localisations of BE were diffuse involvement (24%), involvement of more than one lobe (34%), and single lobe involvement (42%). Previous pneumonic illness is the most common cause of BE, moreover if there is any suspicion for the bronchiectasis, developed after lung infection or other reasons, CT scanning as gold standard should be performed