[Surgical treatment of bilateral pulmonary tuberculosis]

Two hundred and eighty two patients with different types of bilateral tuberculous lesion of the lung were operated on. Most (n = 124) patients underwent consecutive operations, 106 one-stage resections of the lung through transsternal access on the one side and video thoracoscopic resections on the other. One-stage bilateral video thoracoscopic operations were made in 52 cases. The greatest number of postoperative complications was noted with multistage operations, which is accounted for a critically ill patient group, advanced processes, concurrent pyoseptic infection. The patients undergone-transsternal resections showed minimum mortality rates with a rather low incidence of postoperative complications.