Gender Differences: Does It Affect Clinical, Radiological and Microbiological Features in Adult Non-Cystic Fibrosis Bronchiectasis?

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the gender effect on the clin-ic, radiological, and microbiological features in adult non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis. Material and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study of 217 patients with adult non- CF BR. Patients with a confirmed diagnosis of bronchiectasis with high resolution computed tomography were investigated. Patients were clin-ically stable in the previous four weeks enrolled in the study. Symptoms, pul-monary function tests, radiological findings, microbiological results, and bronchiectasis severity index (BSI) were recorded. Results: The mean age of patients was 49.7±15.3 years (range 18-82). Fourty-one percent patients had smoking history. BR patients had a history of pneumonia sequel (47.9%), post-tuberculosis (33.6%) and idiopathic (15.7%). Patients divided into gender groups: females in group I, n=122 (56.2%)) and males in group II, n=95 (43.8%). There were differences in cough (84.4% vs 71.6%, p=0.029), smoking history (19.7% vs 75.9 %,p=0.001), chronic obstruc-tive pulmonary disease (4.1% vs 37.9%, p=0.001), diabetes mellitus (21.3% vs 9.5%, p=0.025), depression history (36.1% vs 10.6%, p=0.001), panic disorders (10.7% vs 3.2%, p=0.039), long term oxygen usage (6.6% vs 17.9%,p=0.017). Forty-two percent of male BR patients had post-tuberculosis history, fifty-six female had post-pneumonia history, also. FEV1 and FVC value were high-er in man (1.5±0.7 vs 1.9±0.9,p= 0.001; 1.9±0.7 vs 2.7±1.0, p=0.0001 respectively). And also, FEV1/FVC ratio was lower in male (73.8±12.3 vs 67.8±15.3, p=0.01). There was no difference between gender and age, dyspnea, heam-optysis, BSI category, radiologic severity using Reiff’s score, microbiological features and bilevel positive airway pressure usage. Conclusion: We concluded that gender differences in non-CFBR might be clinically important in our study population. It is important to consider the gender differences might be effect symptoms, comorbidity, and pulmonary function test results in non- CF BR patients.