Patients who need diagnostic thoracoscopy and can lie down in the lateral position in conscious status, will be randomized between two groups. The control group will be undergone the operation by general anesthesia and insertion of double lumen tracheal tube and the intervention group undergone the same operation by epidural anesthesia. After the operation the epidural catheter will be maintained for postoperative analgesia. These variables will be compared between the two groups: duration of operation, heart rate, minimum arterial oxygen saturation, pCO2 (minimum, maximum), respiratory rate (minimum, maximum), systolic and diastolic blood pressure (minimum, maximum), total hospital stay, total intensive care unit stay, need for mechanical ventilation after the operation, in hospital mortality. Our hypothesis is that there is no difference between the epidural and general anesthesia according to these variables.