[Thoracoscopic lung biopsy in diagnosis of interstitial lung diseases]

Thoracoscopic lung biopsy is accepted to be an appropriate method in diagnosing interstitial lung diseases when lung tissue examination is needed for accurate diagnosis. In our study of 30 patients with chronic interstitial lung diseases a high sensitivity of 97% was reached similar to the yield reported from open lung biopsy techniques. The manyfold described handicap of long lasting pleural fistula after thoracoscopic biopsies could be prevented in most cases by sealing the biopsy site with a fibrin layer. Thus the mean pleural drainage-time was reduced to 3.7 +/- 1.0 days and only 3 out of the 30 patients required a prolonged drainage up to 11 days. There were only a few minor complications except in one patient who developed an etiologically unclear pulmonary edema shortly after the procedure. However the results obtained by this modified bioptic technique are encouraging and confirm again the efficacy and safety of thoracoscopic lung biopsy in diagnosing interstitial lung diseases.