| Abstract | | Hemoptysis is a bloody caugh from the lungs. Patient's description of initial symptomes and the caugh-up help us determine whether the heamorrhage is from the lungs or somewhere else (digestive organs, upper raspiratory organs, mouth). Violent hemoptysis (more than 200 ml of blood in 24 hours or 100 ml of blood momentarily) is called hemoptoe. The basic reason for this disease with children is the infection of lower raspiratory organs or the aspiration of a foreign body and the acute bronchitis, lung cancer or pneumonia with adults. Patients suffering from hemoptoe can die and must be treated immediately. The death rate depends on the amount of lost blood, on the type of the basic disease and on the form of medical treatment. There are three goals when treating this disease: to stop the heamorrhage, to prevent aspiration and to treat the basic diseases. Patients most often die because of asphyxiation, not because of exsanguination. Determining the source of hemoptoe is imperative. We can find it on the lung radiogram, but sometimes computed tomography and/ or bronchoscopy are necessary as well. With an unstabile patient with hemoptoe we first do the bronchoscopy and with a stablle patient we start with the computed tomography of the thorax. Several years ago, patients were mostly treated surgically, however, nowadays the alternative is the emobilization of bronchinal artery. The mortality rate dropped with this method.
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