Abstract
The article presents the results of a survey on the number and types of bronchoscopy procedures, personnel and technical equipment of bronchology centres in the Czech Republic. The data were obtained from 56 centres performing bronchoscopy in adults and 9 performing bronchoscopy in children.
During the year 2012 a total number of 30,354 bronchoscopies on adult patients were carried out by 169 bronchoscopists. Out of these 1,767 were performed with rigid instrumentation, 665 being therapeutic interventions.
Endobronchial ultrasound is the most popular among the special diagnostic methods and in 2012 it was used 1240 times. Altogether, 303 bronchoscopies per 100,000 inhabitants of the Czech Republic were carried out during the studied years.
Twelve bronchoscopists have worked in pediatric wards and performed 672 bronchoscopies in 2012. We have been able to compare the results of the present investigation with similar surveys carried out in the Czech Republic in 1980, 1996 and 2009 as well as with similar surveys from abroad.
The comparison shows that the frequency of use of fibroscopy and rigid bronchoscopy remained more or less unchanged during the last 15 years. The use of interventional bronchoscopy gradually tends to centralize, for instance stenting is carried out only in 6 bronchology sites.
We also observed an expansion in the range of endoscopic procedures, such as the use of intrabronchial valves, which is performed in 3 centres. Comparison of the available Czech data with similar data from abroad shows that the majority of indicators are comparable to the most developed countries in the world.