Decortication
Keyword 1: decortication
Keyword 2: decortication lung
Keyword 3: vats decortication
Your lungs are covered by a protective membrane called the pleura, which allows your lungs to expand while breathing. Sometimes, this covering may become hardened because of disease such as chronic infection or cancer, which can affect your breathing. This may require a treatment called decortication to improve the ability of your lungs to expand when you breathe.
Part 1: What Is Decortication?
Inside the chest cavity is a pair of lungs that is surrounded with membranes (pleura). Between the pleura and the lung tissue is a potential space that is lubricated with a thin layer of fluid. This keeps the pleura and the lung tissue sliding against each other and allows for lung expansion. Sometimes, conditions such as infection (pneumonia), traumatic bleeding or cancer can fill this space with inflammatory fluid, which can solidify and make the pleura adhere to the lungs. It forms a capsule that can entrap the lungs and make breathing difficult.
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When the pleura form fibrous tissues due to an inflammatory process that restricts lung expansion, surgeons perform decortication, which aims to peel off the hardened tissue. This results in the return of lung compliance, which leads to improvement of symptoms.
Newer techniques include video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery or VATS decortication, which is a less invasive method that uses a small camera to guide thin instruments through small skin