Abstract
Introduction: Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed malignancy and the leading cause of cancer related deaths in women. Objective: This study aimed to investigate the efficacy of thoracoscopy in the diagnosis of pleural metastasis of breast carcinomas. Material and Methods: A retrospective study was conducted to include 68 patients with freshly diagnosed breast cancer who had undergone thoracoscopy to drain pleural effusions and to perform pleural biopsies. Whole group of patients were evaluated in terms of age, type of primary breast cancer, macroscopic appearance of pleura during thoracoscopy in addition to presence of malignancy detected in pleura and/or pleural effusion. Results: All of the patients were female and mean age was 53.42 ± 11.20 years. Metastatic disease was diagnosed in the pleura of 42 (61.8%) and in the pleural effusion of 40 (58.8%) patients. The most common type of breast cancer was invasive ductal carcinoma while invasive lobular cancer was the most vulnerable to metastatize to pleura. Age of the patients was not a coefficient in pleural metastasis whereas nodular pleural lesions were significantly related with the development of metastatic disease in both pleura and pleural effusion. Conclusion: Thoracoscopy is a safe and reliable diagnostic tool for the pleural metastases of breast cancer.

Key words: Breast cancer, pleural metastases, thoracoscopy, diagnosis