Single versus double chest drains after pulmonary lobectomy: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Previous randomized controlled trials have compared the efficacy and safety of single chest drain (SCD) and double chest drains (DCD) in the patients undergone pulmonary lobectomy, yet the results remain inconsistent. Therefore, we aimed to conduct this present systematic review and meta-analysis to evaluate the role of SCD and DCD in the patients undergone pulmonary lobectomy.

PubMed, Medline, EMBASE, Cochrane library, Web of Science, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang, Weipu, and China Biomedical Literature databases were searched up to February 28, 2020, to identify the potential RCTs on SCD and DCD in the patients undergone pulmonary lobectomy. The main outcomes including verbal pain score, the duration of drainage (days), the length of hospital stay (days), and the incidence of air leak and re-drainage were collected and analyzed. All the data were processed and analyzed with software RevMan 5.3. We calculated and analyzed the odds ratios (OR) for dichotomous outcomes and the mean difference (MD) for continuous outcomes.

A total of 11 RCTs with 1214 patients were included, in which 589 patients received SCD treatment and 625 patients DCD treatment. The verbal pain score (MD = - 0.54, 95%CI (- 0.87, - 0.21)), the duration of drainage (MD = - 0.65, 95%CI (- 1.04, - 0.26)), and the length of hospital stay (MD = - 0.55, 95%CI (- 0.80, - 0.29)) in SCD group were significantly less than that of DCD group. There were no significant differences on the incidence of air leak (OR = 1.35, 95%CI (0.86, 2.11)) and re-drainage (OR = 0.88, 95%CI (0.41, 1.90)) among the two groups.

SCD is a safe option, and it has the advantages of less postoperative pain, shortened duration of drain, and reduced length of hospital stay when compared with DCD in the patients undergone pulmonary lobectomy.