Single-direction thoracoscopic lobectomy for children with congenital lung malformation: initial experience

Thoracoscopic lobectomy is a common treatment for congenital lung malformation. Single-direction thoracoscopic lobectomy may be an effective and safe approach without the need to flip the lung over repeatedly, thus minimizing tissue trauma, but its use has not been reported in children. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the safety and efficacy of single-direction thoracoscopic lobectomy in children.

A total of 91 patients who underwent thoracoscopic lobectomy in our hospital from January 2020 to December 2020 were retrospectively analysed. According to the inclusion criteria, 21 children were identified as the single-direction group. The details of the single-direction thoracoscopic lobectomy technique are described. Another 21 patients who underwent conventional thoracoscopic lobectomy in the same period were matched using the propensity score matching and set as the control group, the clinical outcomes between the two groups were compared.

The median age of the patients was 4.72 months (4.72 ± 0.90) with a mean body weight of 7.43 kg (7.43 ± 1.14). There were no significant differences in intraoperative blood loss (P = 0.549), operation time (P = 0.859), length of chest tube drainage (P = 0.102) and length of hospital stay (P = 0.636) between the 2 groups. No patients experienced bronchopleural fistula and conversion to thoracotomy in either group. All patients recovered well without respiratory symptoms or other complications after follow-up of more than 1 year.

Our preliminary experience presented a series of single-direction video-assisted thoracoscopic lobectomy for children with satisfactory perioperative results.