Despite the promising potential of video-assisted thoracoscopic pleurectomy in the treatment of pneumothoraces, conventional surgical intervention by a thoracotomy and pleurodesis with ligation/stapling of bullae remains the main form of treatment in many hospitals. It is with this in mind that we present our experience of 250 patients who have undergone surgical pleurodesis for treatment of a persistent or recurrent spontaneous pneumothorax. Of these patients, 74 had undergone parietal pleurectomy (PP), 93 pleural abrasion (PA), 60 transaxillary apical pleurectomy (TAP), and 23 had undergone apical pleurectomy via a posterolateral or submammary thoracotomy (APT). In general, there were few complications and we could show no discernible difference in the rate of complications between the groups. Despite there being no significant difference in the median period of postoperative intercostal tube drainage, there was a significant difference between the groups in the number of patients with a postoperative hospital stay equal to or greater than seven days and a postoperative serosanguinous volume loss greater than 500 ml. Those patients that had undergone parietal pleurectomy tended to remain in hospital for a longer period (> or = 7 days) and to have a heavier serosanguinous volume loss (> 500 ml). There have been no recurrent cases in the PP and APT groups. Their respective median follow up periods are 62 (range 15-83) and 32 (range 15-54) months. The median follow up period in the PA group was 42 (range 13-69) months, one recurrence occurred after 7 months.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)