Investigations

Why?

• 3% of diagnoses are finally made using these investigations ^c
• 1.9% of patients suffered a serious complication of thoracoscopy ^c

Thoracoscopy can help diagnose and exclude malignancy

Patient	Target Disorder and Reference Standard	Diagnostic Test	LR+ (95% CI)	Post-test Probability	LR- (95% CI)	Post-test Probability
pleural effusion c (pre-test probability: 42%)	malignancy (histology)	thoracoscopy	11 (4.5 to 24)	88%	0.10 (0.041 to 0.27)	7%