When other forms of treatment failed to heal the cavities left by active pulmonary Tuberculosis in the lungs, it was common for physicians to perform several different surgical procedures to collapse the diseased lung. When more simple treatments, such as bed rest, did not completely remove these sores in the lungs, it was thought that closing up the lung would prevent further spreading of the disease and aide in the patient’s recovery from Tuberculosis. Such procedures came to be known as "compression therapies", or "lung collapse therapies". After much surgical improvement and as drug therapies became available in the 1950s and 1960s, these surgeries became more and more commonplace in Canada.
Surgeries used in the treatment of tuberculosis included Phrenicotomy, Thoracoplasty, Pneumothorax, and removals such as the Lobectomy and Pneumoectomy. Today, compression therapies are not used in the treatment of tuberculosis. Rather, prescription medications alone are favored in the treatment of this disease.
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