The possible value of mediastinoscopy in staging Hodgkin's disease.

The first mediastinotomies were performed at the end of the 19th century as therapeutic attempts to treat mediastinitis, which at that time was a frequent and uniformly fatal complication of deep-seated neck infections. According to Palva (13), Heidenbain reported the first successful collar mediastinoscopy in 1899. During World War I, Marschik of the Viennese School introduced the concept of prophylactic mediastinotomy in the management of neck and mediastinal war injuries (13). The first diagnostic approach to the mediastinum was advocated by Daniels (4) in a study of scalene fat pad biopsies reported in 1949. Lateral mediastinoscopy as an approach to the superior mediastinum was used by Harken et al. (6) in the early 1950's. This approach represented a logical extension of