ABSTRACT

Objective: To identify endoscopic factors that modifies the cellularity of the bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) in patients with interstitial lung disease (ILD). Material and methods: We submitted 132 patients to BAL and correlated them with endobronchial alterations and cellular characteristics of the BAL recovered. Results: Women were the majority (64.4%), bisegmentary BAL (50%), good bronchoscopic wedge (88.63%). Bronchoscopic repositioning did not influence in cellularity recovered. In 96.22%. The recovered lavage was more than 40% bringing better cellular recovery (more than 20 x 10⁶) (p = 0.038). The abundant bronchial secretions recovered better cellularity (p = 0.068). FVC ‹ 1.00 L (12.87%) and FEV₁ ‹ 1.00 L (18.93%) did not report complications but less cellularity was recovery. Conclusions: The endobronchial alterations did not influence BAL cellularity. Nevertheless, the quantity of recovered lavage has a directly proportional behavior to the cellularity (p = 0.038). Other studied factors showed trend to recover better cellularity. FVC and FEV₁ ‹ 1.00L did not present endoscopic procedure complications but more trend to recover fewer cellularity.

KEYWORDS

Bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL), interstitial lung disease (ILD), endobronchial alterations, total cells, fluid recovery.

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