Innovations : technology and techniques in cardiothoracic and vascular surgery
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Innovations (Phila) · Sep 2012
Clinical TrialThe PleuraFlow Active Chest Tube Clearance System: initial clinical experience in adult cardiac surgery.
To address the clinical consequences related to chest tube clogging, a novel chest drainage apparatus, the PleuraFlow Active Tube Clearance System (Clear Catheter Systems, Bend, OR), was developed. The aim of this world's first clinical experience study was to follow clinicians using the PleuraFlow system to assess usability issues and potential areas of improvement in the heart surgery setting. ⋯ Overall, the physicians and nurses rated the PleuraFlow system positively for its ability to be incorporated into the postoperative workflow of managing the drainage of patients after heart surgery. This device may be useful to allow caregivers to be certain that chest tubes are functioning in the early hours after surgery, when active bleeding is resolving and when complications from undrained blood can ensue.
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Innovations (Phila) · Sep 2012
Management of pleural empyema with single-port video-assisted thoracoscopy.
The aim of this study was to evaluate the safety and efficacy of an original technique of single-port video-assisted thoracoscopy (S-VATS) for the minimally invasive treatment of pleural empyema in fibrinopurulent stage. ⋯ It seems that S-VATS is a safe and effective procedure for the treatment of pleural empyema in fibrinopurulent stage.