Value of the video assisted thoracoscopy in the diagnosis of the pleural effusions – Our experience

Introduction: Pleural effusions are a common and significant clinical problem. The diagnosis required sometimes the practice of the thoracoscopy to biopsy the pathological pleura. Also, this method is utilized in treatment of different effusions like debridement of the empyema, pleurodesis in the malignant effusions. Also, it permets to etablish if an effusion pleural is neoplasic or paraneoplasic, with consequence of the surgical traitement. Material and method: The work presents our experience with this method in the last two years. We retrospectively reviewed 131 patients (82 males, 49 females, mean rage: 62 years). The indications of videoassisted thoracoscopy are presented in table no.1 and 2. Table 1. Malignant pleural effusion 71,75% (94 cases) Lung cancer 31 32,97% Breast cancer 15 15,95% Colonic cancer 7 7.44% Lymphoma 16 17.02% Mesothelioma 15 15.95% Other 5 5,31% Table 2. Benign pleural effusion 28,24% Solitary fibrous tumor of the pleura 2 5.40% Pleural tuberculosis 19 51.35 Bacterial infection 11 29.72% Associated atelectasis 3 8.01% Idiopatic 2 5.40% Aditionaly, we performed a minithoracotomy or thoracotomy for 26 cases. Mean period of hospitalisation was 4,2 days. Results: The benefits of this method are obvious, with hospitalization cost smaller and with discharge of the patient faster. Conclusions: The videoassited thoracoscopy is an indispensable method of diagnosis of pleural effusions.