Early removal of chest drainage and outpatient program after videothoracoscopic lung biopsy

Abstract

We read with interest the article by Molnar et al. [1] on the advantages of videothoracoscopic (VATS) lung biopsy (LB) using harmonic scalpel (HS) versus the traditional endostapler in two randomized groups. The average length of the procedure was 46.9 min for endostaplers versus 30.7 min for HS (16.2 min in favor of HS). However, at chest tube removal timing this tendency changed (30.6 h after LB with endostapler and 40.2 h after LB with HS). Mean hospitalization stays were similar (7.2 days for endostaplers and 7.6 days for HS). The conclusions were that the vibration method is not inferior to the standard technique and offers a safe alternative to endostapler LB.