Introduction

Bronchiectasis is a chronic, progressive respiratory disease, characterised by irreversible structural changes to the lungs, dyspnoea, and recurrent infections. The BTS guidelines for Bronchiectasis outline best practice for the investigation and management of patients with this condition, based on the evidence available and expert opinion.

Aims & objectives

To assess adherence to the BTS standards of care for bronchiectasis (2019) and to examine outcomes after a year of specialist treatment.

Methods

All patients referred to the Papworth CCLI unit between January and December of 2018 were screened for a diagnosis of bronchiectasis (with certain exclusion criteria), giving a total number of 76 patients.

Data on investigations, management and clinical outcomes were then collected from electronic health records and analysed in Excel.

Results

Over 93% of patients had the recommended investigations and 97% of patients were seen by a physiotherapist and taught airway clearance techniques.  Of 26 patients that were having more than 3 exacerbations per year (but not on any regular prophylaxis), 6 patients had their exacerbations controlled with IV therapy alone and 17 were started on regular antibiotics (88%) as per the recommendations.

Of the 22 patients with available FEV1 data, 11 showed an improvement or no change in lung function after 1 year of treatment.  61% of patients were considered to have improved over the course of the year based on either a reduction in the number of exacerbations they were experiencing or an improvement in symptoms.

Conclusions

There was overall good adherence to the guidelines in all areas, leading to an improvement for the majority of patients.