Abstract
We managed 80 patients of bronchiectasis from Jan.1983 to Dec.1992 admitted to the department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Pusan National University Hospital. We evaluated clinically these patients and summarized as follows. Alpha-hemolytic streptococcus was the most commonly found bacterial strain in microbial study. For the conservative treatment, first generation cefalosporins, aminoglycosides and ampicillin were used as antibiotic therapy in this order of frequency. The preoperative final diagnosis was made by bronchography and HRCT. In the image study saccular type bronchiectasis was 47.1%, cylindrical 27.5%, mixed 17.6% and varicose 7.8%. Anatomically left side involvement was more frequent than the right as 61.2% to 38.8% and the most commonly invading lobar area was left lower. Reversibility after conservative treatment for all the types of bronchiectasis was 66%. Surgical treatment were done in 50 cases, among these left lower lobectomy was 38.0%, left lower lobectomy with ligular segmentectomy 22.0%, right middle and lower bilobectomy 16.0%, right lower lobectomy 10.0%, left pneumonectomy 10.0%, right pneumonectomy 4.0%. In 10 cases, there remained some lesion in the other sites of lung parenchyme after first attempt surgical resection because the distribution of lesion is too broad to resect out in single thoracotomy hoping improvement by medical management.