Diagnostic sensitivity and safety of visceral pleural biopsy under semi-rigid medical thoracoscopy in…

ObservationalTherapeutic advances in respiratory disease· 2026

Diagnostic sensitivity and safety of visceral pleural biopsy under semi-rigid medical thoracoscopy in patients with undiagnosed exudative pleural effusions: a retrospective study.

Rui Xu, Lu Wen, Fen Tan … Kaige Wang

Thoracic PathologyObservationalDiagnosisQ1IF 3.2

Visceral pleural biopsy sensitivity for tuberculous effusion trails parietal biopsy under thoracoscopy.

Diagnostic sensitivity and safety of visceral pleural biopsy under semi-rigid medical thoracoscopy in patients with undiagnosed exudative pleural effusions: a retrospective study.

Rui Xu … Kaige Wang

Therapeutic advances in respiratory disease · 2026

Background

Medical thoracoscopy (medical thoracoscopy) is primarily employed to obtain histopathological evidence via parietal pleural biopsy.

Purpose

This study aimed to investigate the diagnostic sensitivity and safety of visceral pleural biopsy performed under semi-rigid medical thoracoscopy in patients with undiagnosed exudative pleural effusions (exudative pleural effusions).

Methods

A retrospective analysis was conducted on 459 patients with undiagnosed exudative pleural effusions who underwent pleural biopsy via medical thoracoscopy.

n = 459 patients

Results

55.6%

biopsy missed nearly half of tuberculosis cases

n = 459 patients

More results

The median time to chest tube removal was 2 days in both the visceral pleural group and the parietal pleural group.

No statistically significant differences were observed between groups.

“

Conclusion

Medical thoracoscopic visceral pleural biopsy is safe and demonstrates comparable diagnostic sensitivity to parietal pleural biopsy for malignancies and tuberculosis presenting as nodular lesions under medical thoracoscopy in patients with undiagnosed exudative pleural effusions.

Diagnostic sensitivity and safety of visceral pleural biopsy under semi-rigid medical thoracoscopy in patients with undiagnosed exudative pleural effusions: a retrospective study.

Diagnostic sensitivity and safety of visceral pleural biopsy under semi-rigid medical thoracoscopy in patients with undiagnosed exudative pleural effusions: a retrospective study.

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