Videothoracoscopic Bullectomy in Patients with Primary Spontaneous Pneumothorax

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Between February and July 1992, videothoracoscopic bullectomy was performed in nineteen patients with primary spontaneous pneumothorax. The indications of this surgery are recurrent in 12, persistent airleakage in 4 and previous contralateral pneumothorax in 3 patients. For the good operative field, we used double lumen endotracheal tube and put the CO2 gas into the thoracic cavity to make the lung collapse. We usually apply the endoGIA or electric cauterization for handling the bleb or bullae and there were 9 cases with of endoGIA only, 4 electric cauterization only and 6 both procedures. To evaluate the advantage of the Videothoracoscopic surgery, we compared surgical results with that of the tho-racotomy group[19 patients]. There were significant differences in operative time[93.8$\pm$41.9 min and 17.1$\pm$53.9 min, p< 0.01] and postoperative airleakage duration[35.6$\pm$113.3 hours and 117.9$\pm$214.4 hours, p<0.05] between the Videothoracoscopy and thoracotomy group. Tube indwelling time was shortened in Videothoracoscopy group[p<0.05]. The hospital stay was very short[p<0.01] and the patients needed analgesic injection less frequentley in videthoracoscopic group[p<0.05] In conclusion, we prefer the Videothoracoscopic procedure to the thoracotomy in uncomplicateed patients with pneumothorax because of simple procedure and good results.