Video-Assisted Thoracic Surgery for Pulmonary Hydatid Disease

Background: Pulmonary hydatid cyst (PHC) is a parasitic infectious disease, that is endemic in various regions worldwide.  Thoracoscopic treatmentremains the treatment of choice for PHC.

The objective of this study is to assess the feasibility of video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) and compare the outcomes of patients undergoing uniportal VATS (U-VATS)with those undergoing multiportal VATS(M-VATS) for the treatment of PHC.

Methods: A retrospective analysis of medical records from 134 patients whounderwent VATSfor PHC between January 2018 and January 2022 was conducted. Among them, 90 (67%) patients who underwent M-VATS, while 44 (33%) patients underwent U-VATS.

Parameters including patient characteristics, cyst diameter, surgical duration, time to drain removal, length of hospital stay and complications were compared between the M-VATS and U-VATS groups.

Results: There were no significant differences in patient characteristics, cyst diameter and surgical duration between the two groups.

The time to drain removal and length of hospital stay in the U-VATS group were significantly shorter than those of the M-VATS group. Postoperative complications were not significantly different between the two groups. There was no postoperative mortality in either group. Throughout the follow-up period, no recurrence was observed in either group.

Conclusions: VATS with uni or multiportal was determined to be a safe and effective technique for the treatment of PHC and can serve as an alternative to traditional thoracotomy.

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Not applicable

The datasets used in this study are openly available at [repository link] and the source code is available on GitHub at [GitHub link].

This work did not receive any external funding.