Chest
Clinical Investigations: Bronchos-Copy/LavageThe Utility of Fiberoptic Bronchoscopy in the Evaluation of the Solitary Pulmonary Nodule
Section snippets
Methods
We retrospectively reviewed bronchoscopy records of all pts evaluated with FB by the Walter Reed Army Medical Center Pulmonary Service between January 1986 and December 1989. This time frame was chosen to allow a minimum 2-year postoperative follow-up. Records that described SPNs suspicious for BC were selected for further review, and an attempt was made to locate information from hospital in-patient records and duplicate files maintained in the Pulmonary, Thoracic Surgery, Oncology, and
Results
Table 1 lists by calendar year (1986 to 1989) the 191 pts whose charts were screened. Ninety-one pts met inclusion criteria and constitute the subject of this report. The remaining 100 charts from 1986 to 1989 were eliminated for the following reasons (Table 2): < stage I BC (diagnosed during clinical-radiologic staging) or extrathoracic carcinoma metastatic to the lung (44), clinically suspected benign disease with planned medical followup (3), medically inoperable (3), and surgery recommended
Discussion
In this retrospective review, we screened 191 charts before selecting a study group of 91. Fifty four charts were eliminated for the reasons listed in Table 2. An additional 46 charts were deleted because they were incomplete or unavailable. We cannot rule out the possibility that our failure to evaluate this group could have introduced a bias into the analysis of our data and conclusions.
This study evaluated a subset of 91 pts in whom the possible risk of malignancy was suitably high that
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Supported by Department of Clinical Investigation Protocol 1748. The findings in this report are not to be construed as an official Department of the Army position unless so designated by other authorized documents.