Anesthesia for thoracoscopic thymectomy: modified non-muscle relaxant technique--case reports

Anesthesia for thymectomy in myasthenia gravis is challenging. The anesthetic experience of that technique is quite large. In involves either muscle relaxant or non-muscle relaxant techniques. However, the literature is deficient of standard anesthetic technique for thoracoscopic thymectomy. Therefore we present in this report a modified non-muscle relaxant technique for thoracoscopic thymectomy (TT). We report two cases who underwent TT under general anesthesia using sufentanil and propofol for induction and local anesthesia spray to the vocal cords to facilitate endobronchial intubation using non-muscle relaxant technique. The intubating, operating and postoperative conditions were excellent. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on modified non-muscle relaxant technique for TT in myasthenia gravis. Further cases have to be done to verify our technique.