Abstract

Diseases of ciliary motility may be congenitally acquired and lead to recurrent sinopulmonary infections and bronchiectasis. Tobacco smoking also leads to various acquired disorders of ciliary function. It is possible to determine ciliary motility using the simple bedside test of saccharin clearance by modified Anderson technique.

Aim of Study: To find out the time taken for the Saccharin placed on inferior turbinate of the nose to reach the oropharynx in normal individual patients with bilateral bronchiectasis and in smokers.

Materials and Method: The study was conducted in patients with bilateral bronchiectasis who attended the department of respiratory, Medicine, Institute of Chest Diseases Calicut Medical College, formed the subject of this study. Ciliary motility study by Saccharin clearance test. 50 healthy nonsmoking males and females were taken as control subjects for the test.

Results: 50 patients were included in the study. The age of the patients ranged from 9-60 years. Duration of illness ranged from 1 to 20 years. Pseudomonas was the most commonly isolated agent in sputum culture (12 out of 29 cultures). The normal maximum saccharine clearance time estimated in healthy non smoker males was 10.7 minutes and in healthy nonsmoker females was 9.6 minutes. Majority of smokers (66%) showed a saccharine clearance time of more than 11 minutes. The majority of bronchiectasis patients (80%) had saccharin clearance time between 20 – 50 minutes. The maximum mean saccharin clearance time in bronchiectasis patients was 46.5 minutes

Conclusions: Saccharin clearance in significant proportion of smokers was increased compared to normal healthy volunteers.

-80% of bronchiectasis patients showed very high saccharine clearance time.

-Saccharin clearance test is simple, noninvasive, least expensive and reproducible bedside test to study ciliary motility.