# Efficacy and prognostic analysis of bronchoscopic intervention in elderly patients with tracheobronchial tuberculosis

## TL;DR

This study shows that bronchoscopic interventions can be effective for elderly patients with tracheobronchial tuberculosis, though outcomes depend on specific risk factors.

## Contribution

The study introduces a prognostic risk scoring model for elderly patients undergoing bronchoscopic treatment for tracheobronchial tuberculosis.

## Key findings

- Interventional therapy improved symptoms and FEV1 in most elderly patients with tracheobronchial tuberculosis.
- Fibrostenosis, severe stenosis, long stenosis length, and high comorbidity index predicted poor prognosis.
- Restenosis occurred in 27.1% of patients, and older patients had lower survival rates.

## Abstract

This study investigated the efficacy and prognosis of bronchoscopic interventional therapy in elderly patients with tracheobronchial tuberculosis (TBTB). We prospectively included 142 elderly patients with TBTB for interventional treatments such as bronchoscopic balloon dilation, mechanical evacuation, and stent implantation, and long-term follow-up (median 28.4 months). The results showed that the technical success rate of interventional therapy was 90.8, 92.3% of patients had improved symptoms, and FEV1 was significantly improved from 43.2% at baseline to 65.8% after surgery (p < 0.001). Fibrostenosis TBTB (OR 3.42), Freitag grade 5 stenosis (OR 2.76), stenosis length > 2 cm (OR 2.18), and Charlson comorbidity index ≥3 (OR 1.98) were independent predictors of poor prognosis. Restenosis occurred in 27.1% of patients after surgery, and the survival rate of older patients (≥75 years) was significantly lower than that of younger patients (81.6% vs. 94.2%, p = 0.003). In this study, we propose a prognostic risk scoring model and confirm that bronchoscopic intervention is safe and effective in elderly patients with TBTB, but patient selection is crucial.