Boonsarngsuk Viboon, Juthakarn Sabaithip, Boonsarngsuk Wison
Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Ramathibodi Hospital, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand.
Clin Respir J. 2012 Jan;6(1):40-5. doi: 10.1111/j.1752-699X.2011.00243.x. Epub 2011 Jun 8.
Thoracoscopic talc poudrage is the preferred technique for medical pleurodesis. However, commercial talc spray atomizers are not applicable with the flexible-rigid pleuroscope. Therefore, we developed a simple and cheap homemade talc spray atomizer dedicated to flexible-rigid pleuroscope.
To describe the experience in performing talc poudrage using our homemade talc spray atomizer.
A retrospective review was performed in 22 consecutive patients with symptomatic malignant pleural effusion undergoing thoracoscopic talc poudrage by our talc spray atomizer with the aim of performing a palliative pleurodesis.
Under direct flexible-rigid pleuroscopic guidance, we could instill talc throughout the pleural cavity with our talc spray atomizer in all cases. The median procedure time to instill the whole talc was 4 min 15 s. The successful pleurodesis was achieved in 77.3%.
We have introduced a homemade talc spray atomizer dedicated to the flexible-rigid pleuroscope. Uniform distribution of talc could be achieved without additional port placement.
