European Respiratory Society Monograph, Vol. 22. 2002
ISBN: 9781904097259
Among patients admitted to the pulmonary wards, pleural diseases are common and the diagnostic procedure as well as finding adequate therapy keeps staff very busy. Many pleural effusions are not due to the treatable tubercolosis infection any more but, frequently and unfortunately, to either primitive or methastatic cancer. Many procedures which enjoyed a large popularity in the pre-antibiotic era can nowadays only be found in interesting historical articles. However, invasive manoeuvres such as thoracentesis, pleuroscopy and pleural biopsy are recurrent techniques in the everyday life of pulmonary physicians.
The idea of a monograph on Pleural Diseases, to attract the interest of young pulmonologists as well as to reinforce the passion of the established specialists, certainly led to one of the best books currently available on this neglected but extremely important topic in respiratory medicine.