General characteristics of a sample of bronchiectasis patients followed in a respiratory clinical setting

Abstract

Objective: To characterize patients with bronchiectasis attending a respiratory clinical setting in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. Method: This is a clinical descriptive retrospective case series study, where we studied patients with bronchiectasis, treated between 2004 and 2011 at the Multidisciplinary Bronchiectasis Ambulatory from the Department of Pulmonology, Federal University of Sao Paulo – UNIFESP. Results: The sample was composed of 194 patients, being 103 (53%) female, with a mean age of 53.3±18.3 years and body mass index of 23.4±4.5 kg/m2. The predominant symptoms were cough (93.8%), expectoration (89.2%), and dyspnea (76.3%), being the major causes of the disease the sequel of pulmonary tuberculosis (37.15), followed by post-respiratory infections (33.5%), and idiopathic causes (23.7%). The most identified comorbidities were bronchial hyperresponsiveness (66%) and cardiovascular diseases (44%). Conclusion: It was possible to delineate the clinical profile of patients with bronchiectasis, characterized by multiple comorbidities and very common presence of cough, expectoration and dyspnea.