The Safety Profile of Medical Thoracoscopy: Expert Advices and Recommendations

Everybody agrees that medical thoracoscopy is a minimally invasive technique which is well tolerated and associated with very few complications—provided the operators are well trained. It has been performed by pulmonologists on continental Europe for more than 100 years. It was an ambulatory procedure during the terrible era of tuberculosis for obtaining lung collapse by cutting pleural adhesions. This was a mainstay of tuberculosis management before antibiotics were invented. This intervention was performed and often repeated on patient.