Endoscopic semiotics of metastatic bronchial tumors

Aim. To study the possibilities of bronchoscopy in the detection and evaluation of metastatic lung tumors.

Materials and methods. From 2017 to September 2020, 3719 bronchoscopies, including 1081 biopsies during bronchoscopy were performed at the Blokhin National Medical Research Center of Oncology. According to the results of the morphological verification, 40 patients had been diagnosed with lung metastasis.

Results. Endobronchial metastatic tumors from extrapulmonary malignancies are quite rare. After had studying 40 cases of metastatic bronchial tumors, we found that the most commonly primary malignancies associated with endobronchial metastases were breast cancer (12 patients), colorectal cancer (6 patients) and thyroid cancer (4 patients). All patients who had been diagnosed with the pathology during the bronchoscopy had been required to make a biopsy for the purpose of morphological verification.

Conclusion. The value of bronchoscopy lies in the possibility not only of the detailed visual studying and detecting the tumor pathology of the bronchial tree, but also of obtaining material for morphological analysis. In this regard, the role of biopsy during bronchoscopy is extremely important. In the visual signs of tumor lesion, it is necessary to take multiple biopsies from different parts of the tumor.