Muhammad Shoaib Nabi, Kamran Khalid Chima, Nauman Tarif, Hraf Zia M Ashraf, Javed Khan Magsi, Abdual Razzak, Shafqat Ali Malik, Iftikhar Ali Awan, Riaz Hussain, Adnan Umar, Taifur-ul islam Gilani, Anam Ahmad.
Need for chest tube after Video Assisted Thoracoscopic (VATS) Lung Biopsy.
Esculapio J Services Inst Med Sci Jan ;8(3):143-6.

Objective: To observe the effects of early removal of chest tube drain after video assisted thoracoscopic (VATS) lung biopsy. Material & Methods: We prospectively evaluated the removal of chest tube drain at six hours or 24 hours after the VATS-lung biopsy in fifty consecutive patients with no evidence of air leak after the lung biopsy. Results: Our results show that removal of chest tube drain at 6 hours was not associated with complications such pneumothorax, atelectasis or pleural effusion as compared to the 24 hours removal of the drain( p>0.05). Conclusion: Early removal of chest tube drain is safe in patients where air leak has been documented to be absent. Since it was a non-randomized evaluation, further randomized study in our population is needed to confirm these findings.

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