Video-assisted thoracic surgery for the management of pleural and pericardial effusion in Behcet's syndrome

A 28-year-old man, who presented with pleural and pericardial chylous effus ion secondary to superior vena cava syndrome, was diagnosed with Behcet's s yndrome. A pericardial window was created by video-assisted thoracic surger y to relieve cardiac tamponade, and this technique also enabled lung biopsy , pleural abrasion, and drainage of the pleural effusion. We report this ca se because of its rarity. To the best of our knowledge, the literature cont ains no other report of the use of video-assisted thoracic surgery for crea ting a pericardial window for the treatment of cardiac tamponade in a case of Behcet's syndrome.