[Usefulness of marking with colored collagen to localize small pulmonary nodules for thoracoscopic biopsy]

We examined the usefulness of marking with colored collagen to localize small pulmonary nodules (less than 10 mm in diameter) for thoracoscopy. Before using colored collagen, 2 of 6 lesions (33%) could be localized. It was possible to localize 14 of 15 lesions (93%) for thoracoscopy after marking with colored collagen, a percentage that is significantly higher than localization without such marking (P < 0.01). Thus, marking using colored collagen is useful to localize pulmonary nodules less than 10 mm in diameter for thoracoscopy.