Original articleGeneral thoracicLung Function Predicts Pulmonary Complications Regardless of the Surgical Approach
Section snippets
Patients and Methods
A retrospective study was performed using the prospective database of the thoracic surgery service at University of Chicago Medicine. All patients undergoing elective isolated lobectomy for cancer or benign disease from 1994 through 2013 were included and were divided into two groups according to the ultimate surgical approach: open thoracotomy and minimally invasive (either VATS or robotic-assisted VATS). This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board, and specific patient consent
Results
From 1994 through 2013, 805 patients underwent isolated lobectomy. There were 428 women and 377 men with a mean age of 65 years. An open thoracotomy approach was applied in 585 patients, whereas a minimally invasive approach was used in 220 patients, including VATS (198) and robotic techniques (22). Patient demographics and clinical characteristics are listed in Table 1. The patients in the minimally invasive group were older, were more likely to be female, had more early stage disease, had
Comment
Risk assessment is important in identifying patients who are at increased odds for mortality and morbidity after major lung resection. The FEV1%, DLCO%, and their predicted postoperative values are among the most useful predictors of postoperative pulmonary complications 3, 12, 13. Their predictive ability was established almost exclusively from datasets of patients undergoing open lung resections 1, 2, 3, 13. In the last decade, minimally invasive approaches, especially VATS lobectomy, have
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