Prospective Study Evaluating the Effectiveness of Intraoperative Ventilation for Predicting Postoperative Air Leaks During Major Lung Resections by Conventional or Robotic Thoracoscopy

Air leak from lung after major pulmonary resections is alveolar-pleural microfistulas resulting from damage to the visceral pleura during lung surgery. Despite advances in stapling techniques and repair methods to ensure pulmonary tightness after excision, air leak is the most common cause of prolonged hospital stay after lung surgery, accounting for 20 to 30% of post-surgical adverse events. Although painless, they remain a significant source of morbidity. 10 to 20% of patients may have a prolonged air leak requiring intervention. Prolonged air leak is defined as an air leakage that persists for 5 days or more. Prolonged air leak is independently associated with increased hospitalization costs of 18% to 27% according to the series reported in the literature, but also with increased costs after hospital discharge, up to 90 days postoperatively. Traditionally, the detection of air leak at the end of surgery is done by testing the lung for submersion in saline solution. With the development of major pulmonary resection techniques by conventional or robotic thoracoscopy (with closed chest), this method has become ineffective because it requires re-ventilating the lung in a closed rib cage, which cancels the visibility of the camera. However, the frequency of these adverse events and the morbidity associated with them now induces the placement of post-operative drains, which are very painful, unlike the leak itself, which makes the pain even more complex to bear for patients. Given the rapid transition to a minimally invasive surgical approach, having a method to detect and quantify intraoperative air leak on a closed chest is necessary in order to accelerate patients' postoperative recovery, reducing their postoperative pain while controlling the incidence of complications. A recent study has shown that the risk of postoperative air leak is possible based exclusively on intraoperative ventilator measurements, but the data are still too scarce to rely on them extensively.