What Is Bronchiectasis?
Bronchiectasis is a long-term lung condition wherein the bronchi, or the airways in the lungs, are damaged. A damaged airway becomes flabby and scarred. The airways get damaged because of infections and other conditions that end up injuring the surface of the airway’s walls.
This results in a person coughing up mucus, because damage inhibits the removal or clearing out of mucus. The airway produces mucus in order to help remove foreign substances from the body. While mucus has a function in protecting the body, having it clog the airways poses serious health issues.
Once mucus continues to gather in the airways, the growth rate of bacteria, dust, and other small foreign obstacles will increase. A person diagnosed with this lung condition will begin to have difficulty in breathing.
Causes and Risk Factors
Bronchiectasis occurs in the lungs due to a lung condition called cystic fibrosis. This is a condition is rare in the Philippines, but it causes long-lasting lung infections and decreases the ability to breathe properly.
People with the following conditions are more susceptible to acquiring bronchiectasis:
- Cystic fibrosis
- Immunodeficiency
- Breathing in substances other than air such as particles of food, saliva, liquids, and other things that can cause damage to the lungs.
- Chronic and inflammatory lung disease
- Chronic or severe lung infections (tuberculosis, pneumonia, non-tuberculous mycobacteria)
Sometimes, bronchiectasis occurs seemingly without cause. This is what we call as idiopathic bronchiectasis.
Then there are instances wherein bronchiectasis occurs in the lungs due to other complications. Here are some conditions that also cause bronchiectasis:
- Immunodeficiency disorders
- Disorders that affect the function of cilia in the airways (the function of a cilia is helping out in clearing mucus from the airways)
- Connective tissue diseases
- Allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis (an allergic reaction to aspergillus, a fungus, that causes swelling in the airways)
- Ongoing chronic pulmonary aspiration can cause inflammation of the airways
- Crohn’s disease
- Sjorgen’s disease
- Rheumatoid arthritis
Signs and Symptoms
Here are the most common symptoms people with bronchiectasis experience:
- Coughing up a considerable amount of mucus
- Night sweats
- Fatigue
- Fevers or chills
- Frequent shortness of breath
- Weight loss
- Clubbing of nails (nails in the fingers or toes thicken and swell)
- Chest pain or feeling tightness in the chest as a result of having difficulty in breathing
- Coughing up mucus that has blood on it (hemoptysis)
- Wheezing sounds when breathing
Most often that not, bronchiectasis starts during childhood. However, it can affect the elderly as well.
Signs and symptoms of bronchiectasis may not show up for months or even years after person has already gone through multiple lung infections.
