• Zhihua Guo, Weiqiang Yin, Hui Pan, Xin Zhang, Xin Xu, Wenlong Shao, Hanzhang Chen, and Jianxing He.
• 1 Department of Thoracic Surgery, the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou 510120, China ; 2 Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Disease & China State Key Laboratory of Respiratory Disease, Guangzhou 510120, China ; 3 National Clinical Research Center for Respiratory Disease, Guangzhou 510120, China.
• J Thorac Dis. 2016 Mar 1; 8 (3): 359-68.

BackgroundThe aim of this study was to reveal the short-term outcomes of video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) segmentectomy without tracheal intubation compared with intubated general anesthesia with one-lung ventilation (OLV).MethodsWe performed a retrospective review of our institutional database of consecutive 140 patients undergoing VATS anatomical segmentectomy from July 2011 to June 2015. Among them, 48 patients were treated without tracheal intubation using a combination of thoracic epidural anesthesia (TEA), intrathoracic vagal blockade, and sedation (non-intubated group). The other 92 patients were treated with intubated general anesthesia (intubated group). Safety and feasibility was evaluated by comparing the perioperative profiles and short-term outcomes of these two groups.ResultsTwo groups had comparable surgical durations, intraoperative blood loss, postoperative chest tube drainage volume, and numbers of dissected lymph nodes (P>0.05). Patients who underwent non-intubated segmentectomy had higher peak end-tidal carbon dioxide (EtCO2) during operation (44.81 vs. 33.15 mmHg, P<0.001), less white blood cell changes before and after surgery (△WBC) (6.08×10(9) vs. 7.75×10(9), P=0.004), earlier resumption of oral intake (6.76 vs. 17.58 hours, P<0.001), shorter duration of postoperative chest tube drainage (2.25 vs. 3.16 days, P=0.047), less cost of anesthesia (¥5,757.19 vs. ¥7,401.85, P<0.001), and a trend toward shorter postoperative hospital stay (6.04 vs. 7.83 days, P=0.057). One patient (2.1%) in the non-intubated group required conversion to intubated OLV since a significant mediastinal movement. In the intubated group, there was one patient (1.1%) required conversion to thoracotomy due to uncontrolled bleeding. The incidence difference of postoperative complications between groups was not significant (P=0.248). There was no in-hospital death in either group.ConclusionsCompared with intubated general anesthesia, non-intubated thoracoscopic segmentectomy is a safe, technically feasible and economical alternative with comparable short-term outcomes. Patients underwent non-intubated thoracoscopic segmentectomy could gain a prompt recovery.

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