Epidemiological aspects in bronchiectasis

Abstract

Objective. The purpose of this study is to provide new preliminary data about the epidemiology of bronchiectasis across Romania that are extremely important in the clinical management of this disease. Material and method. The study group included 102 patients hospitalized in the Marius Nasta Institute, Bucharest, from December 2014 17th until June 2016 2nd, with confirmed bronchiectasis. From the clinical records, we evaluated the anamnestic data, the biological markers and the imaging parameters, such as: personal data (gender, age, residence), bacterial etiology of the disease, radiographic and CT findings and hospitalization days per patients. Results. Among the 102 patients with confirmed bronchiectasis, 54 were males and 48 females. The median age was 54.56 years. The median length of hospital stay was 9,55 days. The disease affected mainly, 54 men and 71 patients from urban areas. Of all cases of bronchiectasis confirmed by CT, 96 were bilateral, and 18 had a single bacterial etiology with Staphylococcus aureus or Haemophilus spp. Multiple bacterial etiology, in 12 cases, was revealed in 2 patiens that had association of Staphylococcus aureus and Candida albicans and also in 3 patients with Staphylococcus aureus, Haemophilus influentzae and another microbial pathogen. Discussions. Bronchiectasis is a pulmonary disease, an “orphan” type disease. An important issue remains establishing the real prevalence of this disease given the lack of specific symptoms, the absence of non invasive screening tests and the uncertain prognosis of this disease. Conclusions. In order to establish a rapid and accurate bacterial etiology of the disease and to identify the antibiotic resistance gene, the microbiology departments need to use routinely molecular biology tests. To prevent bronchiectasis, the active and the passive prophylaxis of acute respiratory tract infections remain a priority.

Keywords

• bronchiectasis
• epidemiology
• microbial etiology