Clinical evaluation of the rapid recovery of patients who underwent video-assisted thoracoscopic lung surgery under non-intubated anesthesia

BACKGROUND: Non-intubated anesthesia thoracoscopic surgery is an evolving form of minimally invasive thoracic surgery. It has had encouraging results in the treatment of lung cancer, and the current concept of enhanced recovery after surgery has become indispensable to surgical treatment. Our center retrospectively evaluated the clinical effect of rapid postoperative rehabilitation in patients who underwent thoracoscopic lung surgery under non-intubated anesthesia. METHODS: The clinical data of 192 patients undergoing video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) at the Department of Thoracic Surgery of The First People’s Hospital of Yunnan Province were retrospectively analyzed. Among them, 75 received double-lumen endotracheal intubation anesthesia, and 117 received a laryngeal mask instead of endotracheal intubated anesthesia. Comparing the intra-and post-operative indicators difference of these 2 groups. RESULTS: There were no significant differences in the postoperative complications, length of hospital stay, hemoglobin counts and platelet count 24 h after surgery between the non-intubated anesthesia and intubated anesthesia groups (P>0.05). In terms of the postoperative rehabilitation indicators of the VATS patients, the non-intubated anesthesia group had an earlier recovery in terms of water (food) intake, out-of-bed activity, and defecation (exhaust) times (P<0.001), less postoperative complications and adverse throat reactions (P<0.05), and higher levels of satisfaction (P<0.05) than the intubated anesthesia group. Compared to the intubated anesthesia group, the non-intubated anesthesia group had fewer changes of white blood cell counts, neutrophil percentages and lymphocytes percentages 24 h postoperatively (9.25×10(9) vs. 7.67×10(9), P=0.045; 7.06 vs. 5.53, P=0.039; 1.45 vs. 1.27, P=0.017), significant reduction pleural drainage after restoring oral intake in postoperative 24 and 48 h (198.43 vs. 131.07 and 114.04 vs. 57.47 mL, P<0.001), shorter postoperative thoracic tube drainage times (3.73 vs. 3.13 d, P<0.001). Notably, there was no difference between the smoking history and previous medical history of the patients in the 2 groups. CONCLUSIONS: Compared to intubation by general anesthesia, non-intubated thoracoscopic anesthesia is a safe and effective option. Patients who undergo non-intubated thoracoscopic lung surgery have a rapid recovery after surgery. Thus, it is worthy of promotion in clinical surgery settings.