Feasibility of fiberoptic bronchoscopy for small infants including newborns.

In pediatric practice, the application of fiberoptic bronchoscopy (FBS) has been limited to infants and children, primarily because the caliber of the available fiberscopes was too large for application to small babies including newborns. Recently, fiberscopes with thinner calibers were generated, prompting application of FBS to newborn patients. In the recent five years, we have utilized narrow-caliber FBS at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of the Tokai University Hospital.