[Parasternal mediastino-pleuroscopy in the diagnosis of diffuse lesions of the lungs]. / Parasternal'naia mediastinoplevroskopiia v diagnostike diffuznykh porazhenii legkikh.

A procedure for parasternal mediastinopleuroscopy (PMS) has been proposed for biopsy of pulmonary tissue and intrasternal lymph nodes. A surgical technique of intervention is described in the paper. PMS was performed in 81 patients with diffuse lesions of the lungs and the disease was morphologically verified. The clinical and X-ray diagnosis was found to be incoincident with their final morphological diagnosis after PMS had been performed in 48 out of 81 patients. To obtain an informative biopsy specimen needed for a morphological diagnosis, biopsies of the lung and lymph nodes should be taken in all cases. Complications occurred in 2 patients. These included bleedings from the intercostal arteries, which required vascular ligation.