ABSTRACT
Bronchoscopy has been in use since over a century ago when Gustav Killian of Freiburg, Germany used a rigid endoscope to extract a pork bone from the trachea of a German farmer.1
The flexible fiberoptic bronchoscope was first developed by Shigeto Ikeda of the National Cancer Institute, Tokyo, in 1964 and became commercially available in 1967.2
Bronchoscopy is currently the most commonly used invasive procedure in the practice of pulmonary medicine and has helped in the development of newer concepts in diagnosis and management of pulmonary diseases.
