New ways of bronchial stump closure after lung resection: experimental study

Lung surgery has long been associated with a high rate of mortality and morbidity. Bronchial stump fistula is one of the leading causes of high morbidity and high mortality rate. The objectives of our study are to asses the effect of new ways of closure the bronchial stump after lung resections.

For our study, we used eighteen adult rabbits. We performed left trans-thoracic inferior lobectomy to each animal because left lung functional capacities are smaller than right lung functional capacities. The bronchial stump was closed in three different ways: simple running suture of 5.0 monofilament polypropylene (Sweet procedure), running suture of 5.0 monofilament polypropylene (horizontal "U" shape model) and Vycril patch, running suture of 5.0 monofilament polypropylene (horizontal "U" shape model) and bovine pericardium patch. All surviving rabbits were sacrificed in 30 day postoperatively.

In our study, we did not notice any deaths among our experimental animals and we did not observe any bronchial stump fistula. In the group of rabbits in which the bronchial stump was closed using a patch of heterologous bovine pericardium, the histological exams revealed a cvasinormal bronchial wall with a normal bronchial epithelium and basal membrane integrity and no inflammatory lympho-plasmocytary infiltrate cell, absence of macrophages at this level.

Using the heterologous bovine pericardium patch to reinforce the bronchial stump could be beneficial because of the faster healing and scarring process. To our knowledge, no studies have previously evaluated this procedure of bronchial stump closure. Our findings could therefore, serve as an impetus for further research in this area.