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Haemoptysis with a normal chest radiograph: how concerned should we be?
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to Dr Gene L Colice, Washington Hospital Center, 110 Irving St, NW, Washington, DC 20010, USA; Gene.Colice@Medstar.net
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
In this issue of Thorax (see page 854), Thirumaran and colleagues describe their experience with a consecutive group of patients evaluated for haemoptysis who had a normal chest radiograph.1 Over a 4-year period these investigators identified 270 patients who were evaluated for this problem. They made two important observations. First, they found that 26 of the 270 patients (9.6%) had respiratory tract malignancies as the cause of the haemoptysis. Of these 26 respiratory tract malignancies, 20 were non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and 2 were small cell lung cancer. Secondly, they performed both fibreoptic bronchoscopy (FOB) and chest CT on the majority of the 270 patients evaluated. Overall, at least 269 FOBs and 257 CTs were performed to diagnose these 22 lung cancers. These observations lead to a series of fundamentally important questions for doctors to consider.
Why should haemoptysis with a normal chest radiograph be a concern?
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Thorax 2009 64: 854-856.[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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Radiology (diagnostics)
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Lung cancer (oncology)
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