Retrospective review demonstrates clinical reliance on microbiologic cultures over cytology in pediatric lung disease, highlighting the definitive role of culture data for infection management.
Background: Bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) is a widely used method in the evaluation of lung pathology in adults and children. The main indications in children include confirming suspected infection/inflammation, aspiration pneumonia, and periodic evaluation of lungs in cystic fibrosis patients. Materials and methods: We reviewed a total of 308 consecutive reports from pediatric BAL specimens as a part of quality assurance project aiming to compare morphologic findings of cytological examination with microbiology testing and evaluate impact of reported data at different stages of sample testing process. Results and Conclusions: We summarized our findings below and found that in most cases of infections, definitive clinical decisions were taken only after microbiologic culture results were available as compared to morphologic findings.
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Tan et al. (2017) studied this question.
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