Study of Clinical Profile and Fiber Optic Bronchoscopy Findings in Patients Diagnosed with Lung Cancer and their Correlation with Histopathological Findings

To study the clinical profile and fiber optic bronchoscopy findings in patients diagnosed with lung cancer and to correlate those with histopathological findings.

This was a retrospective study involving 27 patients with confirmed diagnosis of lung cancer by cytological examination of bronchial brushing and washing specimens or by histopathological examination of endobronchial biopsy specimens. The data was collected from the bronchoscopy records of Chest and T.B. deptt,G.G.S. Medical College, Faridkot. The clinical features, smoking history, various radiological findings like collapse, mass lesion etc with which the patients presented to us were studied. We evaluated the various bronchoscopic findings and their correlation with histopathological findings.

The most common clinical features were breathlessness and chest pain (59%) followed by cough(55%) and hemoptysis (26%).The most common radiological findings were mass lesion (52%) followed by mediastinal widening (26%).The most common bronchoscopy findings were intraluminal growth (63%) followed by outside compression of the bronchi (33%). The histological type was determined in 17 cases. The various histological types of lung cancer detected were squamous cell carcinoma (65%), small cell carcinoma (18%), adenocarcinoma (12%) and poorly differentiated carcinoma (6%).

Our results showed that lung cancer is more common in age group between 45–65 years and in smokers. Patients having mass lesion, mediastinal widening and collapse are strong candidates for bronchoscopy as most of them turned out to be cases of lung cancer.