A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY TO EVALUATE THE ETIOLOGICAL PROFILE OF HEMOPTYSIS AND IT’S CORRELATION WITH SEVERITY

Abstract

Introduction:- Hemoptysis is the spitting of blood that originated in the lungs or bronchial tubes.The patient's history should help determine the amount of blood and a focused physical examination can lead to the diagnosis in most cases. Chest radiographs often aid in diagnosis and assist in using two complementary diagnostic procedures, fiberoptic bronchoscopy and high-resolution computed tomography, which are useful in difficult cases and when malignancy is suspected. Materials and Methods: -We prospectively evaluated 100 patients with hemoptysis,aged ≥18 years,presented in our hospital during 1-year study period. After applying inclusion and exclusion criteria, study population was selected. Patient underwent thorough clinical,general and respiratory examination.Initial routine blood,sputum and radiological evaluation was done in form of chest radiographs. Further chest computed tomography (CT) and bronchoscopic evaluation was done to find the etiology in cases diagnosis was not confirmed in chest radiograph. Final diagnosis was made, and association is seen between various demographic characteristics, comorbidities, severity of hemoptysis, radiological findings and diagnostic yield of different modalities was made. Results:- Tuberculosis was found to be the most common etiology (39%), followed by bronchogenic carcinoma(14%) and bronchiectasis (13%). The majority of the cases had mild (48%) and moderate (39%) hemoptysis with a small proportion of patients (13%) with severe hemoptysis.The diagnostic yield of CT Chest was 73%,that of FOB was 69.5% and the combined yield using both the modalities was calculated to be 82.6%. Conclusion:- Pulmonary tuberculosis remains a leading cause of hemoptysis because of high prevalence but still it is an alarming symptom and require thorough workup to find out the exact etiology.The combined use of bronchoscopy and chest CT probably gives the best diagnostic yield.