Historical Development

Abstract

Thoracoscopy was first introduced by the Scandinavian internist Jacobaeus in 1912 [89]. Since then it has had changing fortunes as a diagnostic and therapeutic method. Originally conceived as a primarily diagnostic tool [89, 90], it was used mainly for pleural adhesiolysis and the establishment of an iatrogenic pneumothorax [117] in the therapy of tuberculosis until the introduction of tuberculostatic agents. With the advent of medical tuberculosis therapy, thoracoscopy increasingly became a purely diagnostic procedure. The sudden rise in the number of publications in recent years indicates a renewed interest in this method. Improved biopsy techniques with high specificity and sensitivity are useful in pneumological diagnosis [22, 24, 34,125]. Therapeutically, the technique is used mainly by pneumologists in the treatment of malignant pleural effusions and spontaneous pneumothorax [124, 181].