Primary spontaneous pneumothorax: is resection of contralateral blebs indicated?

Resection of pulmonary blebs and pleurodesis for spontaneous pneumothorax.

Over a 20-year period, 83 patients underwent operative pleurodesis with resection of pulmonary blebs for spontaneous pneumothorax. Follow-up for all patients was between 5 and 25 years, with a mean of 9.1 years. There were five early (5.6 percent) and three late recurrences (3.6 percent). There were no deaths or need for blood transfusion in our series. There was a low incidence of postoperativ...

Outcomes of Contralateral Bullae in Primary Spontaneous Pneumothorax

BACKGROUND The management of contralateral bullae incidentally found in radiological studies is controversial, largely due to the unpredictability of the natural course of incidentally found contralateral bullae. This study aimed to identify the factors associated with the contralateral occurrence of primary spontaneous pneumothorax (PSP), and to characterize the outcomes of contralateral bulla...

Thoracoscopic wedge resection of blebs under local anesthesia with sedation for treatment of a spontaneous pneumothorax.

We performed thoracoscopic wedge resections of blebs with a stapling device under local anesthesia with sedation in 34 consecutive patients who presented with spontaneous pneumothoraces. The indications for surgery included the absence of parietal pleural adhesions and knowledge of the precise bleb location prior to the procedure. Prior to surgery, 0.5% lidocaine was administered into the pleur...

What is the risk of subsequent contralateral spontaneous pneumothorax following surgical management of a unilateral pneumothorax?

Video-Assisted Thoracoscopic Suture Closure of Blebs to Treat Primary Spontaneous Pneumothorax

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES If surgery is indicated for primary spontaneous pneumothorax (PSP), video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) using an endoscopic linear cutter to resect the involved blebs is the most popular treatment. We tried to determine whether closure of the blebs with sutures without resection is also efficacious enough to treat PSP. METHODS We prospectively analyzed 22 epi...