Abstract
Recent trends concerning bronchoscopy in Japan were examined based on the information obtained by questionnaires completed by 263 departments of major institutions throughout the country. This information provided by the questionnaire was compared with the results of 2 studies performed approximately 10 years ago, and vicissitudes of the status of bronchoscopy were examined. Recently bronchoscopy has come to be most frequently performed by physicians or respiratory disease specialists in contrast to previous times when bronchoscopy was performed primarily by ENT doctors, bronchoesophagologists and thoracic surgeons. Local anesthesia and transoral insertion without a tracheal tube were employed in almost all institutions in Japan. The average number of fiberoptic bronchoscopes per department was 5. 7. Almost all department possessed the standard type and T-type (for treatment instruments). The average number of procedure per year in the 263 departments was 450. Moreover, in 90% of these departments rigid bronchoscopy was never used since 1984. For recording bronchoscopic findings 16 mm or 35 mm film were most commonly employed. Complications occured in 0.5% of 95, 240 procedures. Eight deaths (0.008%) due to complications related to bronchoscopic procedures were reported in this series. Complications in TBLB procedres were highest (1.3%) than the other procedures, and 3 cases (0.02%) which died due to complications of TBLB were reportd.
