[Needle biopsy of the pleura and medical alternatives in pleurisy of unknown etiology].

The presentation contains diagnosis verification findings concerning 328 patients with pleurisy of different etiology. At the first stage of the examination (without pleura biopsy), the pleurisy etiology was defined in 100 (30.5%) patients, including 55 with tumoral, 24 with tuberculous, 19 with cardiac and 2 with allergic pleurisy. Puncture biopsy was conducted in 200 patients aged from 17 to 83 years. The use of biopsy made it possible to determine the pleurisy nature in 72 (45%) out of 160 cases with an exudative one and in 23 (57.5%) out of 40 cases with a fibrinous one. The effectiveness of a single biopsy accounted for 41% while a repeated one could increase the information potential by 6.5%. The information potential in case of tuberculous and tumoral pleurisy ammounted to 75 and 70%, respectively.