Slovenská chirurgia 3/2020

Non-intubated thoracic surgery - review and our experience with this method

Non-intubated thoracic surgery (NITS) has experienced the real renaissance for the last twenty years. This is also related to the development of miniinvasive surgery, especially uniportal video-assisted thoracic surgery, and struggle to achieve the most physiological methods of surgery and anesthesiology. Patient ventilate spontaneously during NITS by using locoregional anesthesia and sedation. Collapse of the operated lungs is created by surgically induced pneumothorax. The aim of this method is to reduce postoperative complications after general anesthesia with selective intubation and also to offer the opportunity to patients who were contraindicated for general anesthesia to undergo an operation. The next aim is to reduce hospital costs. This article shows actual review of NITS and authors’ experience with this method. NITS was established at the Department of Thoracic Surgery of the University Hospital in Martin in 2017, which is demonstrated by case reports.

Keywords: non-intubated thoracic surgery, video-assisted thoracoscopy, local anaesthesia, sedation, spontaneous ventilation