Current Strategy for Surgical Management of Bronchiectasis

Background: There are few current reports of surgical management for bronchiectasis because of its decline in prevalence, and it remains controversial as to which subgroups of patients would benefit from surgical management.

Methods: We reviewed the medical records of all patients who underwent surgical resection for bronchiectasis between January 1, 1990, and December 31, 1997, at our hospital.

Results: Ninety patients underwent 92 operations for bronchiectasis. The mean age was 44.7 years. The presenting symptoms were productive cough in 82 patients, fever in 47 patients, hemoptysis in 35 patients, chest pain in 6 patients, and dyspnea on effort in 4 patients. The disease was bilateral in 13 patients. Complete resection was achieved in 75 patients. There was no operative mortality, and the morbidity rate was 19.6%. Postoperatively the patients were asymptomatic in 45.6%, improved in 38.0%, and showed no improvement in 16.4%. Logistic regression extracted the type of bronchiectasis, the existence of sinusitis, and the type of resection for prognostic discrimination with statistical significance.

Conclusions: Surgery for bronchiectasis can be performed with acceptable morbidity and mortality. Patients with cylindrical bronchiectasis are good surgical candidates and chronic sinusitis is a risk factor for surgical resection. Complete resection should be done whenever possible.