BACKGROUND One of the most common indications for pleuroscopy is undiagnosed pleural effusion, which comprises about 25% of all cases of pleural effusions, which remain undiagnosed despite primary tests. Pleuroscopy was performed for the first time in Iran in Masih Daneshvari hospital located in Tehran. The aim of this study was to assess the diagnostic yield of pleuroscopy performed in this ce...

pleuroscopy “over conventional means of diagnosis is unclear” is virtually impossible to draw from the paper of Faurschou et al. Pleuroscopy deserves, indeed, more attention. Since 1910,2 pleuroscopy has been widely used, mainly in Europe, as a diagnostic and therapeutic procedure. Its diagnostic yield in pleural effusion is close to 100 percent. Pleuroscopy is usually performed with the use of...

BACKGROUND Some trials recently demonstrated the benefit of targeted treatment for malignant disease; therefore, adequate tissues are needed to detect the targeted gene. Pleural biopsy using flex-rigid pleuroscopy and pleural effusion cell block analysis are both useful for diagnosis of malignancy and obtaining adequate samples. The purpose of our study was to compare the diagnostic utility bet...

Bedside pleuroscopy can be used in daily practice by medical pulmonologists if a patient cannot tolerate either general anesthesia or being moved to an operating or endoscopy room due to their critical condition. It is a simple and safe technique that rarely has complications. The aim of this review is to summarize recent literatures about bedside pleuroscopy and share our experiences with usin...

Bilateral empyema associated to infectious pericarditis is an extremely rare, yet life-threatening condition. Pleuroscopy-medical thoracoscopy has proved its efficacy in series of patients with empyema. Yet, all reported cases treated by this technique, concerned patients with pleural infection located to a single hemithorax. We present the case of a 71-year-old man with bilateral empyema treat...

BACKGROUND Lung biopsies obtained during medical pleuroscopy using coagulating forceps could represent a cost-effective alternative to surgical lung biopsies in patients with diffuse parenchymal lung diseases (DPLD). However, it is not clear whether these patients should undergo deeplung biopsies rather than more superficial subpleural lung biopsies. OBJECTIVES The aim of this experimental an...

OBJECTIVE To report our preliminary experience using pleuroscopy for patients with pleural diseases. DESIGN Prospective cohort study. SETTING Tertiary referral hospital with service input from respiratory physicians and cardiothoracic surgeons in Hong Kong. PATIENTS Between April and November 2007, patients with undiagnosed exudative pleural effusions and proven malignant pleural effusion...