{"id":716,"date":"2025-10-29T11:03:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T11:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/bronchiectasis\/?page_id=716"},"modified":"2025-10-29T12:28:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T12:28:18","slug":"symptoms-to-diagnosis","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/bronchiectasis\/basic-facts\/symptoms-to-diagnosis\/","title":{"rendered":"Symptoms to Diagnosis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"938\" height=\"613\" src=\"https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/bronchiectasis\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/153\/2025\/02\/Symptoms-to-Diagnosis.png\" alt=\"Symptoms to Diagnosis\" class=\"wp-image-717\" srcset=\"https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/bronchiectasis\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/153\/2025\/02\/Symptoms-to-Diagnosis.png 938w, https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/bronchiectasis\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/153\/2025\/02\/Symptoms-to-Diagnosis-300x196.png 300w, https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/bronchiectasis\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/153\/2025\/02\/Symptoms-to-Diagnosis-768x502.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 938px) 100vw, 938px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><strong>Typical pathway from presentation to diagnosis<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<p>Bronchiectasis is diagnosed by a CT scan of the chest.&nbsp;&nbsp; A normal chest x-ray cannot confirm bronchiectasis \u2013&nbsp;nor can it be used to say that bronchiectasis is not present. Most patients have had a CT of their chest requested because of chronic symptoms in keeping with bronchiectasis. At this point patients are reviewed by the respiratory team in secondary care who will arrange for further investigations such as breathing tests, blood tests and sputum culture.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"164\" src=\"https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/bronchiectasis\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/153\/2025\/02\/CT1-300x164-1.gif\" alt=\"CT1 300x164\" class=\"wp-image-719\" style=\"width:452px;height:auto\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>The CT scan shows airways that are permanently damaged and look like cysts. Due to the appearance of the airways, this type of bronchiectasis is described as cystic* bronchiectasis. An arrow points to the these cysts. The changes seen here are quite severe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>* In this context the term cystic is not related to cystic fibrosis. It is purely used to describe the shape of the airways (typically this can be associated with more moderate to severe bronchiectasis).<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"629\" src=\"https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/bronchiectasis\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/153\/2025\/10\/Screenshot-2025-05-12-113840-1024x629.png\" alt=\"Screenshot 2025 05 12 113840\" class=\"wp-image-1351\" style=\"width:501px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/bronchiectasis\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/153\/2025\/10\/Screenshot-2025-05-12-113840-1024x629.png 1024w, https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/bronchiectasis\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/153\/2025\/10\/Screenshot-2025-05-12-113840-300x184.png 300w, https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/bronchiectasis\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/153\/2025\/10\/Screenshot-2025-05-12-113840-768x472.png 768w, https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/bronchiectasis\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/153\/2025\/10\/Screenshot-2025-05-12-113840.png 1235w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>This CT image shows lungs with milder bronchiectasis. There is a wide range of changes that can be seen in a CT scan of the chest, with mild bronchiectasis through to more severe changes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bronchiectasis is diagnosed by a CT scan of the chest.&nbsp;&nbsp; A normal chest x-ray cannot confirm bronchiectasis &ndash;&nbsp;nor can it be used to say that bronchiectasis is not present. Most patients have had a CT of their chest requested because of chronic symptoms in keeping with bronchiectasis. At this point patients are reviewed by the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":708,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_searchwp_excluded":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"class_list":["post-716","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"rttpg_featured_image_url":null,"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"NHS Lothian","author_link":"https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/bronchiectasis\/blog\/author\/nhs-lothian\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":false,"rttpg_excerpt":"Bronchiectasis is diagnosed by a CT scan of the chest.&nbsp;&nbsp; A normal chest x-ray cannot confirm bronchiectasis &ndash;&nbsp;nor can it be used to say that bronchiectasis is not present. Most patients have had a CT of their chest requested because of chronic symptoms in keeping with bronchiectasis. At this point patients are reviewed by the","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/bronchiectasis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/bronchiectasis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/bronchiectasis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/bronchiectasis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/bronchiectasis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=716"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/bronchiectasis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1361,"href":"https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/bronchiectasis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/716\/revisions\/1361"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/bronchiectasis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/bronchiectasis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/bronchiectasis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}