Thoracoscopy

For diagnosis

When the cause of your symptoms isn’t clear, thoracoscopy gives your care team a way to see inside your chest visually. During thoracoscopy, your doctor can also take samples, called biopsies, to diagnose cancers that affect the chest, including mesothelioma, esophageal cancer and lung cancer.

The procedure is also helpful in staging lung cancer. It gives your care team more information about the cancer’s size, location and if it has spread.

For treatment

Thoracoscopy is an option for treating some lung, esophagus, and thymus gland conditions, including cancer or fluid buildup. During thoracoscopy, your doctor can insert additional tools for surgery or other procedures.

• Treating lung cancer: When lung cancer is still small and localized, it may be treated during a thoracoscopy. Your doctor can remove a wedge of tissue from your lung where the tumor is located or an entire lobe of your lung, called a lobectomy.
• Drain fluid around your lungs: Excess fluid buildup around your lungs can make it hard to breathe. Your doctor may drain this fluid during a thoracoscopy. Fluid drainage performed without thoracoscopy is called thoracentesis.
• Help prevent fluid buildup in the chest: When fluid continues to build up around the lungs, your care team can perform pleurodesis. This procedure removes the space between the outer lining around the lungs and the chest wall so fluid can no longer build up.
• Repair a collapsed lung: Some cases of pneumothorax, or a collapsed lung, are treated using a thoracoscopy procedure.

Before the procedure

Before your procedure, it’s important to eat and drink as directed by your care team. When you arrive for your thoracoscopy, you’ll go to the pre-procedure area, where you’ll get an IV and have monitors placed on your body. You’ll also have a chance to talk with the anesthesiology provider and ask any questions.

During the procedure

If your thoracoscopy requires general anesthesia, you’ll have a breathing tube placed in the operating room. Then, your surgeon will make small incisions between two ribs just below your shoulder blade and near the underarm. A thoracoscope and tools are inserted to allow your surgeon to view the area and perform your specific procedure.

Depending on your procedure, you may have other additional small incisions made, your lung may be temporarily deflated, and a drain may be inserted to drain fluid. Once your procedure or surgery is complete, the small incisions are closed, the breathing tube is removed, and you’ll be moved to the recovery area.

After the procedure

Immediately after your thoracoscopy, you’ll still have several monitors or tubes attached to your body, and you may feel groggy. Your care team will monitor you in the recovery area before you are discharged or moved to your hospital room. It’s also common to have a chest X-ray as a follow-up to your procedure.

You can expect to stay a few days if your procedure requires a hospital stay. During your stay, your care team will work with you to manage pain, get you moving and teach you how to care for yourself when you go home.

Once you are home, be sure to follow your doctor’s instructions about pain management, caring for your incision and activity restrictions. If you had biopsies taken during your thoracoscopy, expect it to take a few days to get the results.