Nonintubated Thoracoscopic Pneumonectomy for Bullous Emphysema

Anesthetic Management for Pulmonary Resection: Current Concepts and Improving Safety of Anesthesia

Increasingly complex procedures are routinely performed using minimally invasive approaches, allowing cancers to be resected with short hospital stays, minimal postsurgical discomfort, and improved odds of cancer-free survival. Along with these changes, the focus of anesthetic management for lung resection surgery has expanded from the provision of ideal surgical conditions and safe intraoperative patient care to include preoperative patient training and optimization and postoperative pain management techniques that can impact pulmonary outcomes as well as patient lengths of stay.

Subxiphoid, Nonintubated, Opioid-Free, Video-Assisted Pneumonectomy: A New Frontier in Thoracic Surgery

Surgical approaches to major pulmonary resections have evolved from thoracotomy to multiportal video-assisted thoracoscopy (VATS) and subsequently uniportal VATS. The efficacy of this progress has been validated in a multitude of publications demonstrating reductions in complications, patient perception of pain, and postoperative length of stay. More recent advances include subxiphoid extrathoracic access and nonintubated, opioid-free anesthesia. Early publications have demonstrated promising results with respect to safety, technical feasibility, and enhanced recovery. However, there remains a paucity of literature relating to hybrid approaches comprising both subxiphoid and nonintubated, opioid-free anesthesia in the context of pneumonectomy. The current report is the case of a patient undergoing pneumonectomy. Both subxiphoid and nonintubated, opioid-free techniques were utilized. The authors describe preoperative workup, surgical and anesthesia-related caveats, and postoperative recovery. In conclusion, this approach is technically feasible, safe, and may be associated with enhanced recovery.

Nonintubated Video-Assisted Thoracic Surgery for the Management of Primary and Secondary Spontaneous Pneumothorax

Nonintubated video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery for the treatment of primary and secondary pneumothorax was first reported in 1997 by Nezu. However, studies on this technique are few. Research in the past 20 years has focused on the perioperative outcomes, including the surgical duration, length of hospital stay, and postoperative morbidity and respiratory complication rates, which appear to be better than those of surgery under intubated general anesthesia. This study provides information pertaining to the physiologic, surgical, and anesthetic aspects and describes the potential benefits of nonintubated thoracoscopic surgery for the management of primary and secondary spontaneous pneumothorax.

Suction Ventilation for Uniportal Video-Assisted Thoracic Surgery Without Endotracheal Intubation

The aim of this study is to describe the technique of pulmonary expansion by suction control from a surgical wound during nonintubated uniportal video-assisted thoracic surgery. Five patients developed oxygen desaturation intraoperatively even with facial mask ventilation. Oxygenation was completed after 3 minutes with the suction technique through the uniportal wound. All the patients underwent the operation under spontaneous ventilation, without conversion to endotracheal intubation. The suction ventilation technique can provide an alternative solution during deoxygenation conditions of nonintubated video-assisted thoracic surgery.

Anaesthesia management for bronchoscopic and surgical lung volume reduction

Optimizing the patient's condition before the lung volume reduction (LVR) according to recommendations by American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) guideline on perioperative cardiovascular evaluation is mandatory. Implementation of a multimodal analgesia concept and the use short-acting anaesthetics enhances recovery and avoids postoperative pulmonary complications. Normovolemia, normothermia, lung protective ventilation and an evidence-based concept of airway management (i.e., double-lumen tube, bronchus blocker) are suggested for intraoperative management of surgical lung volume reduction (SLVR). General anaesthesia (using remifentanil, propofol and mivacurium) with an i-gel^® supraglottic airway device should be used for bronchoscopic lung volume reduction (BLVR). Jet ventilation through rigid bronchoscopy or with a jet catheter may be an alternative concept. Experienced consultants should perform anaesthesia for LVR.

Non-intubated thoracoscopic surgery: initial experience at a single center

Background

Non-intubated thoracoscopic surgery is an evolving form of minimally-invasive thoracic surgery. We commenced performing non-intubated thoracoscopic surgery at our center in August 2016. We would like to report our initial experience, over a period of 1 year, with this procedure.

Methods

From August 2016 to August 2017, non-intubated thoracoscopic surgery was performed in a series of consecutive patients who underwent thoracoscopic surgery in those who did not meet any of the following exclusion criteria: body mass index (BMI) >30, expected difficult airway, expected extensive pleural adhesion, severe cardiopulmonary dysfunction, persistent cough or excessive airway secretion, high risk of gastric reflux, and underlying neurological disorder.

Results

A total of 115 consecutive patients underwent non-intubated thoracoscopic surgery. Of these, 83 (72.2%) of patients had lung cancers that had undergone pulmonary resection and the other 32 (27.8%) patients were diagnosed with pulmonary metastasis, benign lung diseases, thymic tumor or other conditions. The mean time of anesthesia was 172.4 min and time of operation was 130 min. The mean postoperative chest tube duration was 3.9 days and time of hospital stay was 6.0 days. There were 9 conversions (7.8%) to intubation, due to increased respiratory movement with intraoperative hypoxemia or severe pleural adhesion. There were 16 complications (13.9%) following surgery, but all of these were successfully managed during the period of hospital stay. There was no postoperative mortality. In multivariate analysis, old age and high BMI were significant risk factors for conversion to intubation (hazard ratio =1.122, P=0.038; hazard ratio =1.408, P=0.042, respectively).

Conclusions

Non-intubated thoracoscopic surgery can safely be performed in selected patients.

Nonintubated uniportal thoracoscopic wedge resection for early lung cancer

Background

Minimal invasive surgery is current choice of treatment for lung cancer. Combined nonintubated anesthesia with uniportal thoracoscopic surgery is not well understood. Here, we report the experience of nonintubated uniportal thoracoscopic surgery in the treatment of primary non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Methods

From January 2014 to December 2015, we retrospectively reviewed 131 consecutive patients with primary NSCLC who underwent nonintubated uniportal thoracoscopic wedge resection and mediastinal lymph node dissection at a single medical center.

Results

Of the 131 patients, 110 (84%) received preoperative computed tomography-guided dye localization. Most of them were diagnosed with early stage invasive adenocarcinoma (N=112, 85.5%; pathological stage IA: 84.7%, N=111), and the mean size of the nodule was small (diameter: 0.85±0.40 cm). All section margins were free of malignancy. In total, 7 of the 131 patients (5.3%) had their treatment converted from uniportal to multi-portal video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS), and 1 (0.8%) had his treatment converted to endotracheal intubation with general anesthesia. The mean operation time was 91.1±32.6 minutes, and the postoperative complications included pneumonia (0.8%), prolonged air leaks (0.8%), and subcutaneous emphysema (1.5%).

Conclusions

Overall, nonintubated uniportal VATS is a feasible, effective and safe procedure for the treatment of early primary lung cancer.