Urabe N, Sakamoto S, Ito A, et al. - Researchers herein examined if bronchial brushing in bronchoscopy can aid in diagnosing pulmonary nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) infection in patients with suspected NTM lung disease and nodular bronchiectasis on chest computed tomography (CT) images. From December 2017 through December 2019, they prospectively performed bronchoscopy for 69 patients with clinically suspected pulmonary NTM infection on chest CT. At the same segmental or subsegmental bronchi, bronchial washing was performed with 20 or 40 mL of normal sterile saline before and after bronchial brushing. Thirty-seven of the 69 (53.6%) patients showed NTM (Mycobacterium avium in 27, Mycobacterium intracellulare in 7, M. abscessus in 2, and M. kansasii in 2). As per findings, the NTM culture-positive rate increased by only 4.3% (3/69) when additional bronchial brushing was performed, as compared with bronchial washing alone. Hence, brushing appears to have limited utility.