• Bishow Kumar Shrestha, Shital Adhikari, Binay Kumar Thakur, Dipen Kadaria, Kishor Kumar Tamrakar, and Mukti Devkota.
• Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine Unit, Chitwan Medical College Teaching Hospital, Chitwan, Nepal.
• JNMA J Nepal Med Assoc. 2020 Mar 1; 58 (223): 158-164.

IntroductionMedical thoracoscopy has recently gained renewed interest due to its minimal invasive nature and high yield diagnostic outcome. This study aims to observe diagnostic yield and safety of medical thoracoscopy in undiagnosed exudative pleural effusion.MethodsThis is a descriptive cross-sectional study conducted in two tertiary care hospitals in Chitwan from March 2018 to May 2018. Ethical approval from the Institutional Review Board was obtained. Convenient sampling was done that included all the patients who met criteria for undiagnosed exudative pleural effusion after diagnostic thoracocentesis. Patients having contraindication to procedure and who refused consent were excluded. Statistical analysis was performed using IBM SPSS Statistics 20 and data are presented as mean ±SD and frequency (percentage).ResultsA total of 14 patients underwent rigid medical thoracoscopy. All 14 patients had unilateral pleural effusion. The overall diagnostic yield was 100%. Malignancy was the most frequent histopathology diagnosis seen in 11 (78.57%) patients, the commonest being metastatic adenocarcinoma in 8 (57.1%). Pleural tuberculosis and acute-on-chronic pleuritis were seen in 2 (14.3%) and 1 (7.1%) patients, respectively. Pleural deposits and hemorrhagic pleural fluid were the two commonest findings, seen in 10 (70.1%) and 9 (64.3%) patients, respectively. Two (14.3%) patients clinically treated as tuberculous pleural effusion was re-diagnosed to have metastatic adenocarcinoma. Procedure related mortality and major complications were nil. Common procedure-related minor complications observed were mild to moderate pain and mild bleeding, observed in 3 (21.4%) and 2 (14.3%) patients, respectively.ConclusionsMedical thoracoscopy is a safe, well-tolerated and high yield procedure in undiagnosed exudative pleural effusion. This art of medicine should be promoted in daily medical practice.

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