Video-assisted thoracoscopic treatment for spontaneous pneumothorax as two-day surgery.
BACKGROUND
To see whether video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) for spontaneous pneumothorax (SP) as 2-day surgery is a safe and cost-effective procedure, we retrospectively compared VATS as 2-day surgery with standard VATS.


METHODS
From April 1994 to March 2000, 139 SP patients were operated on: 115 patients were operated on by means of standard VATS and 24 were treated by 2-day surgery. The parameters we compared were the postoperative complications, hospitalization cost, and relapses.


RESULTS
Excepting that 2 of those selected for 2-day surgery required another hospitalization, short-term complications were considered to be similar for the two groups. The median economic cost of 2-day surgery was about $5,822 US dollars and was lower than that of standard VATS. The difference in the recurrence rate between the two groups was not significant.


CONCLUSIONS
We conclude that VATS as 2-day surgery is a safe and cost-effective procedure.
Maruyama
R
R
Department of Thoracic Surgery, Oita National Hospital, Oita, Japan.
Oka
T
T
Anai
H
H
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002648:Child; D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D007902:Length of Stay; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011030:Pneumothorax / Q000601:surgery*; D011183:Postoperative Complications; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D020775:Thoracic Surgery, Video-Assisted / Q000191:economics / Q000379:methods; D013997:Time Factors; D016896:Treatment Outcome