Chronic sequels after thoracoscopic procedures for benign diseases

Chronic pains after lateral thoracotomy are present in up to 40% of cases. Chronic sequels after thoracoscopy are less common, but nevertheless, a cause for complaints by patients. Pain often reflects a recurrence of malign disease. For this reason, we only investigated patients with benign disease.

We retrospectively investigated the incidence of chronic sequels in a consecutive series of 161 patients who underwent thoracoscopy for benign disease and were not converted to an open procedure. The data from all 144 patients, contactable at the time of investigation, who were at least 2 months postsurgery, were analyzed.

Chronic sequels were present in an overall of 31.4% of patients. Patients complained of chronic pain (20.1%), numbness distal to the incision sites (16.9%) and disaesthesia (8.3%). Painkillers are taken on a regular basis by 82.8% of patients with chronic pain. The use of Staplers, as well as the number of drains (1 vs. 2) used, were statistically significant (P>0.05) for chronic sequels. All other investigated factors, such as sex, age, and length of drainage, were not significantly different in the two groups.

The thoracoscopic approach is not likely to impact on the prevalence of long-term postthoracotomy sequels, and therefore, further strengths are necessary to reduce this number.