Original Article

Comparision of Clinical Results of Video-Assisted Thoracoscopic Surgery and Axillary Mini-Thoractomy for Spontaneous Pneumothorax

Joung Teak Kim, Kwang Ho Kim
Author Information & Copyright
Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, College of Medicine, Ewha Womans University, Korea.

Copyright ⓒ 1994. Ewha Womans University School of Medicine. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Published Online: Sep 30, 1994

Abstract

Video-assisted thoracoscopy has recently evolved as an alternative to thoracotomy for several thoracic disorders. Spontaneous pneumothorax may be idealy srited for thoracoscopic management. We compared our results with thoracoscopic management of spontaneous pneumothorax in 19 patients with a group of 11 patients previously subjected to axillary mini-thoracotomy. Indications of operation, sex distribution, and age were similar. There were no clinical significant differences in hospital stay, duration of chest tube, duration of operation, and amounts of parenteral analgesies between two group.

Although the video-assisted thoracoscopic bullectomy was sasfe, effective, and newly developed, bullectomy by axillary mini-thoracotomy was acceptible also with excellent results for the patients.