Bronchoscopy

"A bronchoscopy is a great advantage to patients in determining whether they're undergoing rejection or infection even before the patient may be aware of it." -- Richard Barbers, MD

For those having heart-lung or lung transplants, periodic bronchoscopies are done to assess your new lung(s) for signs of infection and/or rejections. The bronchoscopy is done in the bronchoscopy suite, operating room or at your bedside. The procedure involves placing a long tube into your nose after giving you some local anesthetic to numb up your nose and back of throat. The tube is passed down your throat into your lung(s).

Bronchoscopy

The bronchoscopy may make you cough and gag a bit until the doctor passes your throat and goes into the lungs. You may ask the doctor to give you a medicine to relax you before the bronchoscopy.

The bronchoscopy allows us to see if you have any obvious infection in your lung(s) and allows us to observe the area where your new lung(s) is (are) attached to your trachea. We may also get specimens to check for infection. In rare cases, the doctor may actually get pieces of lung tissue to look at under a microscope to check for infection in the tissue or rejection.

Even patients not undergoing heart-lung or lung transplant may need to have a bronchoscopy if they develop a pneumonia following heart transplantation. The procedure is the same for all patients.