Chest
Original Research: Interventional PulmonologyComparison of Dynamic Expiratory CT With Bronchoscopy for Diagnosing Airway Malacia: A Pilot Evaluation
Section snippets
Subjects
Our hospital institutional review board approved the review of radiologic and clinical data for this study. Informed consent was not required for this retrospective analysis, but patient confidentiality was protected. This study was compliant with the requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
We used our computerized hospital information system to retrospectively identify all patients with bronchoscopically proven airway malacia referred for CT airway imaging at
Results
The final study cohort was comprised of 29 patients (17 women and 12 men; mean age, 60 years; range, 36 to 79 years). CT findings were concordant with bronchoscopic findings for the presence and distribution of airway malacia in 28 of 29 patients (97%) [Figure 2, Figure 3, Figure 4]. CT was concordant with bronchoscopy regarding the distribution of malacia in these 28 cases: diffuse tracheobronchomalacia in 23 cases (82%), bronchomalacia in 3 cases (11%), and tracheomalacia in 2 cases (7%) [
Discussion
Acquired tracheomalacia has been increasingly recognized as a relatively common but underdiagnosed cause of chronic respiratory symptoms.1, 3, 4, 11, 15Bronchoscopic visualization of dynamic airway collapse is the current “gold standard” for diagnosis, but it is an invasive technique with small but inherent risks. Pulmonary function testing may provide supportive evidence of this condition, but it is not diagnostic.3Because it is a functional abnormality that cannot be diagnosed on routine
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The authors do not report any conflicts of interest related to the topic discussed in this article.
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