Kaposi's sarcoma of the lung patients with the acquired immune deficiency syndrome is often indistinguishable by clinical and radiographic criteria from opportunistic pneumonia. Pulmonary Kaposi's sarcoma and pneumonia may frequently be present in the same patient. Previous observers have commented on the repeated failure to establish a diagnosis of Kaposi's sarcoma of the lung by fibreoptic br...

Bronchoscopic laser therapy is now an established method of relieving neoplastic tracheobronchial obstructions. Much of the previous work, however, has been done with the flexible fibreoptic bronchoscope in conscious patients, under sedation and local anaesthesia. Besides the obvious discomfort to the patient the use of the flexible fibreoptic bronchoscope for laser therapy under local anaesthe...

Diffuse alveolar haemorrhage (DAH) is one of the major causes of death in microscopic polyangiitis (MPA) patients, because of acute respiratory failure with various respiratory symptoms. We, herein, present a case of chronic and asymptomatic DAH in a patient with MPA who was diagnosed by fibreoptic bronchoscopy. The patient showed localized reticular shadows, without any respiratory symptoms, a...

The flexible fibreoptic bronchoscope was first made commercially available in 1970 (Anderson and Faber, 1978) and it has since had a major impact on the diagnosis and management ofpulmonary disease. Within 3 years of its introduction, 25,000 bronchofibrescopic examinations had been performed in the United States in 191 centres (Sackner, 1975). At the Brompton Hospital an average of 855 fibreopt...

Airway management in the presence of closed mouth is challenging for anesthesiologists. Nasotracheal route is the only way for intubation in such situations. Routinely nasal intubation will be done under fibreoptic bronchoscope or light-aiding devices guidance. In the failure of such devices it could be done blindly. Here we report a closed mouth patient scheduled for pedicle division in second...

Nineteen immunocompromised patients with pulmonary infiltrates underwent diagnostic fibreoptic bronchoscopy with transbronchial forceps and brush biopsy. A specific diagnosis was obtained in 21/25 procedures (10/11 focal lesions and 11/14 diffuse legions). The most common diagnosis was infection, and organisms isolated included bacteria, fungi, Pneumocystis carinii, and herpes simplex. A pneumo...

BACKGROUND Breast cancer can very rarely result in late metastases to the paranasal sinuses. METHODS AND RESULTS We present a 75-year-old woman who developed sinonasal symptoms mimicking sinusitis 20 years after receiving a breast cancer diagnosis. Rigid nasendoscopy was unremarkable, but due to persistent unilateral nasal symptoms and suspicious radiological findings, the patient underwent e...

We hypothesised that in obese patients, tracheal intubation with the GlideScope® would be advantageous compared with flexible fibreoptic intubation. Seventy-five anaesthetised obese patients were randomly assigned to oral intubation by either GlideScope or flexible fibreoptic bronchoscope. We compared the two devices for time to intubate (p = 0.19), difficulty of intubation (p = 0.58), successf...