Wu YB, et al. – In the present study, the diagnostic significance of thoracoscopy in the management of patients with malignant pleural effusion (MPE) was evaluated. The study results showed that medical thoracoscopy was a valuable and safe tool in diagnosing malignant pleural effusion with minimal complication rates.

Methods

• For the purpose of this study, consecutive patients with malignant pleural effusion were retrospectively reviewed, and their demographic, radiographic, thoracoscopic and histological data were gathered.

Results

• According to the findings obtained, 342 of 833 patients undergoing thoracoscopy were finally confirmed to suffer from MPE between July 2005 and June 2014.
• It was noted that the top 3 frequent causes of MPE were metastatic carcinoma (79.5%), malignant mesothelioma (10.2%), and lymphoma (2.9%).
• Among metastatic malignancies, lung cancer (85.2%) was the most common cancer, followed by breast cancer (4.4%), ovarian cancer (2.2%), pancreatic cancer (1.8%), etc.
• The authors did not record any serious adverse events related to thoracoscopy in this study.