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Clinical features of bronchiectasis

Last reviewed dd mmm yyyy. Last edited dd mmm yyyy

Authoring team

Common clinical features of bronchiectasis include:

  • cough (productive or sometimes non productive)
  • daily production of sputum - may be described as mucoid, mucopurulent, thick, tenacious or viscous (viscid) (1)
  • haemoptysis - tends to be recurrent (2)
  • dyspnoea
  • constitutional symptoms - fatigue and weight loss (3).

Symptoms like chronic cough and sputum production may be mild specially at the start of the disease and may be misdiagnosed to diseases such as asthma, COPD, rhinosinus diseases, tracheobronchial infection or gastroesophageal reflux which are more common in an average UK general practice (1).

These are dependent on disease severity, and can be broadly divided into mild, moderate and severe.

Reference:

  1. Barker AF. Bronchiectasis. N Engl J Med. 2002 May 2;346(18):1383-93. doi: 10.1056/NEJMra012519.
  2. ten Hacken NH, van der Molen T. Bronchiectasis. BMJ. 2010 Jul 14;341:c2766. doi: 10.1136/bmj.c2766. PMID: 20630967.
  3. O'Donnell AE. Bronchiectasis. Chest. 2008;134(4):815-23.

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