Open AccessAssociation of bronchoalveolar lavage yield with chest computed tomography findings and symptoms in immunocompromised patients
Author(s) -
Kyle R. Brownback,
Steven Q. Simpson
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
annals of thoracic medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.639
H-Index - 33
eISSN - 1817-1737
pISSN - 1998-3557
DOI - 10.4103/1817-1737.114302
Subject(s) - medicine , bronchoalveolar lavage , computed tomography , yield (engineering) , radiology , lung , materials science , metallurgy
Fiber-optic bronchoscopy (FOB) with bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) is a common procedure performed in immunocompromised patients with undiagnosed pulmonary pathology. Identifying patients with the highest potential diagnostic yield may help to avoid morbidity in patients unlikely to benefit from the procedure. We sought to determine which patient factors, specifically chest computed tomography (CT) findings, affected diagnostic yield of BAL.