Current Thoracic Surgery 2019 , Vol 4 , Issue 2
Blood pleurodesis for air leak after pulmonary resection
Ali Murat Akçıl1,Merve Hatipoğlu1,Levent Cansever1,Deniz Sansar1,Celal Buğra Sezen1,Mehmet Ali Bedirhan1
1Department of Thoracic Surgery, University of Health Sciences, Yedikule Chest Diseases and Thoracic Surgery Health Application and Research Center, İstanbul, Turkey DOI : 10.26663/cts.2019.00012 Viewed : 4919 - Downloaded : 1897 Background: Blood pleurodesis procedures were generally performed for patients with prolonged air leakage due to pneumothorax. This study investigates the use of blood pleurodesis in patients with prolonged air leak after lung resection and the variables affecting its success.

Materials and Methods: A total of 493 patients who underwent anatomical lung resection for nonsmall cell lung cancer between January 2012 and December 2016 were evaluated retrospectively. 68 (13.7%) patients who underwent blood pleurodesis were included the study group. The success rate of the procedure was evaluated according to age, gender, side and type of the surgery, histopathology, and the expansion of the lungs and air leakage.

Results: The success rate was not related to age, sex, side of the operation, histopathology, and type of the resection, while it was found to be statistically significant for the air leakage score (p < 0.001). The procedure was successful in 46 (67.6%) patients and failed in 22 (32.3%) patients.

Conclusions: The blood pleurodesis is a safe, effective and low cost method for treatment of postoperative air leakage in patients with anatomical lung resection for primary lung carcinoma. Keywords : blood pleurodesis, autologous blood pleurodesis, prolonged air leakage, lung resection