[The first experience with video-assisted thoracoscopy used during operations in children and adolescents for pulmonary tuberculosis].

The paper first describes the experience in performing operations in 34 children and adolescents with different forms of tuberculosis of the lung and intrathoracic lymph nodes via mini-invasive access (a 4-6-cm skin cut), by applying video-assisted thoracoscopy. Practice has provided evidence that lung resections of any scope can be made in children and adolescents with pulmonary tuberculosis and nonspecific lung diseases during video-assisted thoracoscopic operations. The latter have a lot of advantages over the traditional thoracic operations; these included decreases in the duration of operations, in intraoperative and early postoperative blood and plasma losses and the duration of inpatient treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis in children and adolescents, and earlier activation.