COMPARISON OF CT VIRTUAL BRONCHOSCOPY WITH FIBRE OPTIC BRONCHOSCOPY IN THE EVALUATION OF ENDO-BRONCHIAL LESIONS

ABSTRACT

Background: Virtual bronchoscopy is a noninvasive tool for assessing the airway. It can be used along with multiplanar CT scan for better assessment of endobronchial tree. A lot of researches has been conducted in various parts of the world weather CT bronchoscopy can replace actual flexible fiberoptic bronchoscopy. We aimed to explore the utility of virtual bronchoscopy (VB) for evaluation of tracheobronchial lesions and weather this can be helpful for pulmonologist for better assessment of airway while using real time flexible bronchoscopy. Our age group comprised of patients from 21 years to a maximum a Results: ge of 80 years with a mean age of 52.6 years. VB was better in detecting external compression with a Kappa value of 0.68. VB had a moderate agreement with FOB to detect endoluminal lesions with kappa value of 0.70. None of the mucosal changes detected by FOB was detected by VB. In detecting obstructive lesions VB substantially agreed with FOB with a kappa value of 0.8. Moderate agreement was seen by VB in detecting both malignant and non-malignant lesions vompared to FOB. Virtual bronchoscopy when used in conjunction with axial CT Conclusion: images can enhance diagnostic accuracy of bronchial pathologies. VB cannot replace conventional bronchoscopy due to associated disadvantages such as the inability to perform a biopsy, the inability to detect mucosal infiltration, the relatively low specificity rate when compared to high sensitivity rates, and the inability to offer real-time evaluation