Lung decortication

A lung decortication is a cardiothoracic surgical procedure usually performed for situations such as a chronic thoracic empyema or a chronic hemothorax where a diseased, often chronically infected, pleura is debrided from the adjacent lung and removed. It is also sometimes performed in selected cases of pleural mesothelioma ⁶. This can be performed either as an open surgical procedure or using video assisted thoracoscopic surgical (VATS) technique.