Chest tube insertion is a common procedure usually done for the purpose of draining accumulated air or fluid in the pleural cavity. Small-bore chest tubes (≤14F) are generally recommended as the first-line therapy for spontaneous pneumothorax in non-ventilated patients and pleural effusions in general, with the possible exception of hemothoraces and malignant effusions (for which an immediate p...

BACKGROUND Recently, single-port video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) has been proposed as an alternative to the conventional three-port VATS for primary spontaneous pneumothorax (PSP). The aim of this study is to evaluate the early outcomes of the single-port VATS for PSP. METHODS VATS was performed for PSP in 52 patients from March 2012 to March 2013. We reviewed the medical records of th...

more cost-effective than chest-tube drainage, a well accepted treatment for PSP requiring a chest tube. In other words, our study, performed with a randomised, prospective design, definitely showed that TT poudrage is superior to conservative treatment by chest-tube drainage. This is important information which has never been reported before. SCHRAMEL et al. [1] performed a different study. The...

We herein present the case of a 69-year-old male with intractable pneumothorax, which occurred after gastrectomy, who could not tolerate general anesthesia because of a poor cardiopulmonary reserve and renal and hepatic insufficiency. We performed a ligation of perforated bulla using a semiflexible thoracofiberscope under an intercostal nerve block and subcutaneous anesthesia. The postoperative...

During embryonic life, events may alter the normal growth and fusion of the endocardial tube, the paired dorsal aortae, and the vitelline plexus, leading to anomalies and variants of the mature axial arterial system.1 Many of these are well known, especially those associated with the aorta, heart, and umbilical artery.1,2 Vitelline variants have also been found that are either associated with M...

To achieve complete resection of metastatic colonic carcinoma in the liver and lung, thoracolaparotomy-assisted simultaneous resection was attempted in a 60-year-old male patient who had previously undergone sigmoidectomy for primary sigmoid colon carcinoma. A solitary liver metastasis was observed in segment 7 and a solitary lung metastasis was located in segment 6 of the right lower lung. Sim...

Nine cases of delayed mediastinal tamponade occurring between the 6th and 20th days after operation are described. AM patients were on anticoagulant therapy at the time tamponade occurred. Tube drainage of the medlastinum and wide drainage of the medisstinum into the pleural space did not prevent this complication. Eight of the nine cases were managed successfuUy by medi8stinal drainage through...

BACKGROUND/PURPOSE There has been no report describing the optimal clamping method for biliary drainage tubes in living-donor liver transplantation (LDLT), although biliary splinting and drainage plays an important role in this procedure. METHODS When performing LDLT, we generally use a 2-mm drainage tube for the splint at the biliary anastomosis, and externalize it through the lower common b...

Percutaneous catheter drainage is a standard therapy for management of selected intra-abdominal abscesses. We describe three patients in whom this technique caused complicated thoracic empyemas. All patients required thoracotomy for decortication despite initial thoracostomy tube drainage. In each case, the percutaneously placed drainage catheter was found traversing the costophrenic angle, lea...

Results Subxiphoid pericardial drainage and right thoracic pleural drainage were performed under local anesthesia. Pericardial serous fluid of 400 ml was drained. The right pleural serous fluid of 500 ml was drained. A subxiphoid pericardial and right thoracic drainage tube were inserted during surgery and removed after 4 days. No microorganism was cultivated from pericardial and pleural fluids...