Aims and Objectives To investigate the merits of conducting bronchoscopies in patients with haemoptysis and normal or non-diagnostic CT scan.

Methods Using the in-hospital bronchoscopy reporting tool, a retrospective analysis was carried out of the bronchoscopies performed on patients with haemoptysis but non-diagnostic CT scan.

Results Between September 2008 and December 2011, a total of 450 bronchoscopies were performed. After excluding the patients with CT scan abnormalities which could explain the haemoptysis, medical notes of the remaining 99 patients were analysed. Out of these, 74 patients had a significant smoking history. 79 bronchoscopes were normal with the remaining 20 examinations revealing benign pathologies. These included generalised erythema, inflammation, purulent secretions and cartilagenous nodules. No new diagnosis of malignancy was made.

Conclusions Results of our study suggest that a normal CT scan examination has a high negative predictive value for lung cancer. Further studies would be beneficial to ascertain the role of bronchoscopy in the investigative pathway of lung cancer in patients with normal CT scan.