Blood Cough (haemoptysis)

Question

How often is the case that a CF patient dies of blood cough? For how serious it has to be taken if one has only 1-2 tablespoons of blood cough per month? Does one have to list oneself because of this even when the other results are still within the scope (FEV1 up to 40%, 02 97%)? Many thanks.

Answer

Hello,
under the term "blood cough" many, very different things (and different in their degree of seriousness) can be hidden. Therefore it is impossible to find a very clear answer, what you probably expect. I do not know statistical data, how the frequency of a dramatic bleeding of the lung really is among the causes of death when suffering from CF. Speaking of my own experience, this is a very, very rare problem.
Bleedings are, however, frequent and sometimes a reason to favour a transplantation, even if the lung does still function within the scope - from my own experience again: here I can very clearly remember a patient (out of several hundred), where we had to do this. However, we are talking in this case about severe bleedings of the lung with a decrease in hemoglobin, in that specific case we had already tried all other options in case of a severe bleeding of the lung (closure of the bronchial artery).
For getting more concrete, one could better assess the meaning of the blood cough if one had a CT of the thorax with an early bolus of contrast medium, where one would be able to see the degree of the widening of the bronchial artery. Such an investigation would best be done at a CF center, where in case of emergency the method of a minmal invasive closure of the bronchial artery and also the operative options are available.
This might all sound too complicated, this is true, because only the CF- doctor in charge can estimate if this would make any sense.
Yours sincerely,
Prof. Dr. TOF Wagner

10.11.2008