TRACHEOBRONCHIAL CYTOLOGY IN INHALATION INJURY

The aim of this study is to establish whether tracheobronchial cytolog y is useful in the diagnosis of inhalation injury. Twenty patients dia gnosed to have inhalation injury by existing clinical criteria and 20 control patients were admitted into the study. Bronchoscopy and brush biopsies were carried out, They were then scored using a Total Cellula r Score and Differential Cellular Score, These were compared with clin ical and bronchoscopic scores and respiratory outcome. The average Tot al Cellular Score of the patients with inhalation injury was 497.4 +/- 281.9 and that of the control patients was 1004.2 +/- 88.4. There was a strong correlation between clinical, bronchoscopic, and total cellu lar scores, The Differential Cellular Score showed a left shift in pat ients with inhalation injury. This study shows that tracheobronchial c ytology is a useful adjunct in diagnosing and assessing the severity o f inhalation injury, Furthermore, our results suggest that it may be s uperior to current methods in predicting respiratory outcome.