Non-intubated surgical lung biopsies in elderly and frail adults—one shot, two targets: a case report

Abstract

Background: According to recent data, non-intubated thoracic surgery (NITS) appeared to be a safer and feasible alternative to conventional endobronchial intubation and one-lung positive pressure ventilation for diagnostic minor video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) procedures. NITS seems to provide a shorter anesthesiologic time, less postoperative pain, improved recovery, and shorter hospital length of stay, with less postoperative complications or morbidity. Nevertheless, these results in older and fragile adults are controversial. The peculiarity of the reported case is the concomitant presence of two possible pulmonary pathologies in a patient with more than one feature that could contraindicate surgery (age, obesity, restrictive pulmonary pathology, and other comorbidities).