Related Experiment Video
Updated: Mar 9, 2026

Local Anesthetic Thoracoscopy for Undiagnosed Pleural Effusion
Published on: November 10, 2023
Advances in pleuroscopy
Stavros Anevlavis1, Marios E Froudarakis1
1Department of Respiratory Medicine, Medical School of Alexandroupolis, Democritus University of Thrace, Greece.
Objectives:
To describe the technique of pleuroscopy, its clinical uses such as diagnosis of exudative pleural effusion, treatment of pleural infection, treatment of pneumothorax, and diagnosis and pleurodesis of malignant pleural mesothelioma. Also to describe the newer techniques developed such as minothoracoscopy, semirigid thoracoscopy, narrow band imaging pleuroscopy, infrared pleuroscopy, autofluorescence pleuroscopy.
Data Source:
We searched the pubmed the last decade for publications with the key words pleuroscopy, medical thoracoscopy, pneumothorax and pleuroscopy, malignant pleural mesothelioma, minothoracoscopy, semirigid thoracoscopy, autofluorescence pleuroscopy.
Conclusion:
Medical thoracoscopy is the method of choice for investigation of the undiagnosed exudative pleural effusions. Newer techniques, such as narrow band imaging thoracoscopy, infrared thoracoscopy, autofluorescence thoracoscopy are offering a promising future for medical thoracoscopy.
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