Intrapleural cough pressure in patients after thoracotomy

Cough dynamics in the post-thoracotomy state.

A series of 24 adult male patients undergoing thoracotomy were found to have a reduction in their cough pressures in the immediate postoperative period to 29 percent of their preoperative values. Cough pressures still averaged only 50 percent of control values one week following surgery, with slow return toward normal over the ensuing three weeks. Pain associated with the surgical wound appeare...

Cough in patients after stroke.

WARD et al. [1] are to be congratulated on their new and important findings concerning cough in patients after stroke. They measured a large number of ventilatory parameters during voluntary and reflex cough, and compared the values in stroke patients and healthy controls. Although the relationship of voluntary cough after stroke with the risk of aspiration has been analysed extensively, this s...

Intrapleural intercostal nerve block associated with mini-thoracotomy improves pain control after major lung resection.

OBJECTIVE To prospectively assess the impact of intrapleural intercostal nerve block (IINB) associated with mini-thoracotomy on postoperative pain and surgical outcome after major lung resections. METHODS Between January 2004 and February 2005, we randomly assigned 120 consecutive patients undergoing mini-thoracotomy (10-13 cm) for major lung resections, to receive or not IINB from the 4th to...

Pain control after thoracotomy.

Lung injury after thoracotomy.

Postoperative respiratory complications are the commonest problem after all types of thoracic surgery. The exact incidence depends on the type of surgery and the preoperative health and lung function of the patient, but rates of up to 50% are often quoted. 2 Most of these complications are diagnosed as either `pneumonia' or `postoperative atelectasis'. However, the role of microbiological patho...