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BACKGROUND Medical thoracoscopy is a nominally invasive procedure practised in diagnostic and therapeutic approaches for pleural diseases. We report a series of patients who underwent thoracoscopic pleural biopsy and clinicopathological analysis presenting to our center. METHODS A prospective study of thoracoscopic pleural biopsy was carried out in 117 cases over a period of one year. Clinical diagnosis, age and gender distribution, smoking habit, pleural fluid analysis, types of lung lesions, subtypes of histological data of the patients were collected prospectively and analysed. RESULTS Male to female ratio was 1.8 : 1. The most common symptom among patients was shortness of breath. Above 60 years age group was usually affected, particularly patients who were smokers. Histopathological diagnosis confirmed malignancy in 57.2 % patients, tuberculosis in 15.4 %, others including solitary fibrous tumour, non - tubercular granulomatous lesion, foreign body type multinucleate giant cell reaction, non-specific chronic inflammatory lesion in 27.4 % patients. Metastatic adenocarcinoma of pleura was the most common histological finding. CONCLUSIONS Medical thoracoscopy is a relatively safe, highly compatible technique which decreases the need of diagnostic thoracotomy. It decreases the time interval in achieving the final diagnosis and to initiate the treatment without delay. |
