Thoracoscopy in the endoscopy suite, has a high diagnostic yield of undiagnosed pleural effusions with minimal and mild complications. Whereas relatively minimal invasive techniques, such as thoracentesis, image-guided pleural biopsy or blind pleural biopsy, can yield sufficient cell or tissue material to establish the diagnosis of the underlying condition, more definite invasive diagnostic and therapeutic procedure, such as thoracoscopy, may be required for accurate sampling and diagnosis, and further provide real-time treatment options in same procedure. If thoracoscopy is considered the gold standard for the diagnosis is a fact in case. The current review aims to provide informations on thoracoscopy indications in benign pleural diseases according to up to date publications.
K E Y W O R D Sbenign pleural effusion, empyema medical thoracoscopy, pleural infections, tuberculous pleural effusion 74 | ANEVLAVIS Et AL.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.