European journal of cardio-thoracic surgery : official journal of the European Association for Cardio-thoracic Surgery
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Eur J Cardiothorac Surg · Feb 2005
Estimating hospital costs attributable to prolonged air leak in pulmonary lobectomy.
Prolonged air leak (PAL) after pulmonary surgery is a frequent occurrence and is reported to cause increased length of stay (LOS) and hospital costs although the costs directly attributable to PAL have never been published. The present study aims to compare the prevalence of pulmonary complications (atelectasis, pneumonia and pleural empyema) in patients with or without PAL and to quantify economic costs directly incurred by PAL in a series of pulmonary lobectomies. ⋯ PAL patients are prone to developing major postoperative morbidity. PAL calculated costs are over 13,000 per year. This data is useful for designing technical cost-effective strategies to avoid post-lobectomy PAL.