Anesthesia for thoracoscopy: an overview.

Advances in technology have provided the means to reduce the length of stay for some surgical patients while offering increased quality of care. Videoscopic surgery is a rapidly expanding technology with increasing applications. When used in place of open thoracotomy, thoracoscopy offers the patient a less traumatic treatment modality. This procedure presents challenges to the anesthetist in choosing anesthetic technique, patient monitoring, and maintenance of cardiorespiratory function in the presence of pneumothorax and a variety of coexisting disease states.