“What are some risks of lung surgery?”
I need to have surgery to remove blood from my chest cavity. The doctors say that it's necessary to do this surgery now rather than later. What risks come with lung surgery after it's done?
7 Answers
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If there is significant blood or fluid that cannot be drained by non-surgical approaches adequately, then surgery would be best to performed without delay of weeks or months, especially if this is blood. Blood, when undrained, can organize and be difficult to evacuate. Furthermore, the lung will be compressed and will develop an inflammatory layer on its surface that can scar and "entrap" the lung making expansion of the lung difficult later.
Minimal
This type of surgery is often necessary and carries very little risk that includes infection and pneumonia.
The reason to remove the blood is to prevent infection. The risks depend a little bit on how the operation will be performed (VATS vs. open thoracotomy). Potential risks include wound infection, pneumonia if you do not cough and clear your secretions, pain, blood clot, arrhythmias, and possible air leaks.
Removing a hemothorax early before the blood turns to scar tissue surrounding the lung is straightforward and should not lead to major problems. If you wait too long and scar forms around the lung, it is more tedious to remove and you can have small air leaks on the surface of the lung requiring chest tubes to be left in place longer (several days). Either way you will do better long term if the blood is removed and the lung allowed to fully re-expand.
It is assumed that the blood is not in the form of a liquid that can be removed with simple chest tube placement or a much smaller tube drainage called a thoracentesis. Therefore, the blood is in the solid form and requires removal called a decortication. Thoracentesis, decortication and chest tube placement are not technically "lung surgery" but procedures perform in the space between the lung tissue and the chest wall.
A decortication may require opening the chest via the space between two ribs to remove the thickened blood. This procedure could leave one with acute and maybe chronic chest pain due to injury to an intercostal nerve that is positioned the underside of each rib. A VATS procedure uses a scope and small incisions to visualize the pleural space and contents for removal. There is minimal chance for much discomfort with this minimal invasive surgery technique. If there is adhesions to the lung, the "blood" removal could cause small air leaks from the lung that will require placing a chest tube in the pleural space via a rib space for several day until the air leak stops.
A decortication may require opening the chest via the space between two ribs to remove the thickened blood. This procedure could leave one with acute and maybe chronic chest pain due to injury to an intercostal nerve that is positioned the underside of each rib. A VATS procedure uses a scope and small incisions to visualize the pleural space and contents for removal. There is minimal chance for much discomfort with this minimal invasive surgery technique. If there is adhesions to the lung, the "blood" removal could cause small air leaks from the lung that will require placing a chest tube in the pleural space via a rib space for several day until the air leak stops.
