Does hiatal hernia cause bronchiectasis?

We aimed to investigate the incidence of bronchiectasis supposed to be created by the compression hiatal hernia (HH) on bronchi. The thorax computed tomography (CT) scans of patients which carried out in Duzce University, School of Medicine, between February 2014 and August 2015 were retrospectively evaluated. The repeated scans in the same patient were excluded. 4388 patients were included in the study. A total of 98 HH cases were detected. The rate of HH according to small, moderate and large, size were 45 (45.9%), 9 (9.2 %), 44 (44.9), respectively. 58 of the cases (59.2%) were female. The mean age was 73.30 ± 9.14 (45-90). 9 (9, 1) patients (8 female, %88.8) were found to have confirmed bronchiectasis on Thorax CT. The rate of hiatal hernia accompanied by bronchiectasis were similar in male and female gender (p = 0.078). The prevalence of bronchiectasis were significantly high in large hernias with 81.4% rate (p = 0.009). Demographic parameters and comparisons between Bronchiectasis+, Bronchiectasis– subgroups are shown in Table 1. Bronchiectasis rate, was 12.343 times (OR: 12.343, 95% CI: 1.479-103.027, p = 0.009) higher in large HH group compared to small and moderate HH group .Hiatal hernia accompanied by bronchiectasis with 88.1% was anatomically near to HH. As a result, it is thought that hiatal hernia may cause bronchiectasis due to external compression other than lymphadenopathy or the tumor as an etiology of bronchiectasis and should be considered in the differential diagnosis.