Muthukumar Shunmugam1 , Joseph Pratheeban 2 , Suresh Kumar 3
BACKGROUND India has the highest burden of Tuberculosis in the world. Reaching a correct diagnosis is a challenge for the physicians treating the patients who present with negative sputum smears due to lack of sputum production, low bacterial load and insufficient sample or who present with no expectoration. On the other hand, empirical antituberculosis treatment produces risk of drug resistance and economic burden to society. Aim of our study is to assess the diagnostic yield of flexible fibreoptic bronchoscopy in patients suspected to have pulmonary tuberculosis whose sputum smears were negative in our hospital. METHODOLOGY In this study, we enrolled 60 patients of sputum negative for AFB and suspected to have pulmonary tuberculosis by Chest Radiology and clinical examination, subjected to flexible fibreoptic video bronchoscopy and selective bronchial washings were done in all patients. RESULTS Bronchoscopy lavage smears were positive for M. tuberculosis in 17 patients (28.33 %), 13 patients were found to have primary lung malignancy. CONCLUSION Fibreoptic bronchoscopy has a rapid and reliable role in the diagnosis of patients suspected to have tuberculosis who have negative smears and those who cannot produce sputum and other diagnosis like malignancy to be ruled out.
