Digital thoracic drainage, a new system to monitor air leaks in pediatric population
jpedsurg.org shows its articles on its own site.
Read the article on jpedsurg.org ↗Article · Jan 2019 · 1 min read
In brief
In brief
This prospective study compared digital versus traditional thoracic drainage systems in 26 pediatric patients following pulmonary resection. Digital drainage significantly reduced chest tube duration (1.69 vs 5.38 days, p<0.05) and hospital stay, demonstrating safety and effectiveness for objective air leak monitoring in children.
Written by the GCMD Library team from the article.
Introduction
New digital thoracic drainage systems allow an objective measurement of air leakage. They have proven their usefulness in the postoperative thoracic surgery in adults, but there is little experience with its use in the pediatric population. The objective of our study is to analyze their safety and effectiveness in the postoperative period of the pediatric patients.
Method
A prospective consecutive observational study was done. All patients submitted to pulmonary resection between 2011 and 2017 and in whom digital thoracic drainage system was used (Thopaz Chest Drain System, Medela, Switzerland) were prospectively enrolled in this study. We analyzed variables: duration of chest tube (CT), days of hospitalization and radiographs in the immediate postoperative period related to the presence of CT. This group was compared with a historical cohort of patients (from 2011 to 2015) with a pulmonary resection in whom the traditional thoracic drainage was used. For the statistical analysis, the Mann–Whitney U-Test was used for independent samples.
Result
Twenty-six patients were included, Digital drainage system was used in13 patients and traditional drainage was used in 13 patients. The median age was 18 months (12 days-14 years). The mean number of days with the chest tube was 1.69 ± 0.6 in digital drainage group versus 5.38 ± 4 days in traditional drainage group (p