In the January 1991 issue of Chest, Baughman et al’ reported the utility of bronchoscopy with bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) in the diagnosis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infections, and they concluded that BAL is useful for this indication. However, the M tuberculosis infection was diagnosed with only BAL in one of 29 cases, when BAL and bronchial wash specimens were obtained together. In a pro...

The aim of this study was to investigate whether the demonstration of plasma cells (PC), which are normally absent in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid, facilitates differentiation among pulmonary disorders. Initial BAL fluid samples of 1,260 patients were analyzed. In 83 of these, PC were found. Of these 83, 47 were obtained from individuals suffering from extrinsic allergic alveolitis (EAA)....

OBJECTIVE To assess the diagnostic yield of fibreoptic bronchoscopy and bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) compared to gastric aspiration (GA) in children with probable pulmonary tuberculosis (TB). METHODS Children with probable pulmonary TB were subjected to bronchoscopy, BAL and gastric aspiration. The samples were examined for acid fast bacilli (AFB) on smear. RESULTS A total of 52 children un...

Although neutrophil number may be increased in the airways of patients with asthma, its pathogenetic role in this disorder remains unclear. We evaluated BAL of 8 normal control subjects, 30 +/- 2 years of age, and 24 patients with mild asthma: 17 patients with allergic asthma, 24 +/- 1 years of age, and 7 patients with nonallergic asthma, 30 +/- 1 years of age. The BAL of asthmatic patients sho...

It is known that cAMP and cGMP are important for vasorelaxation, and cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterases (PDEs) regulate their levels. Balloon angioplasty (BAL) is associated with reduced cAMP and cGMP levels, and inhibition of PDE-3 reduces restenosis. In this study, we found that BAL increased PDE-3 activity, which affected vasoreactivity of rat aortic rings 24-h post-BAL; these were compare...

Bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) is a diagnostic procedure used for re covering cellular and non-cellular components of the epithelial lining fl uid of the alveolar and bronchial airspaces. Non-bronchoscopic BAL involves the insertion of simple catheters or balloon-type devices through an endotracheal tube, while bronchoscopic BAL involves the instillation and immediate withdrawal of pre-warmed ste...

The performance of a sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) which detects Aspergillus galactomannan (GM) was evaluated in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid samples from 19 patients who were treated for hematological malignancies and who were suspected of having invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA). All patients had fever and pulmonary infiltrates on the chest roentgenogram on the...

We review the experience at our institution with galactomannan (GM) testing of bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid in the diagnosis of invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA) among solid-organ transplant recipients. Among 81 patients for whom BAL GM testing was ordered (heart, 24; kidney, 22; liver, 19; lung, 16), there were five cases of proven or probable IPA. All five patients had BAL GM of > ...

We present a time variability analysis of broad absorption lines (BAL; spread over the velocity range 5800-29000 km/s) seen in spectrum J132216.25+052446.3 (z(em)= 2.04806) at ten different epochs spanning 19 years. The strongest component (BAL-A; 5800-9900 is made up several narrow components having separations close to C IV doublet splitting. IV, N V, and Si from BAL-A show correlated optical...