Objective The study objective was to assess in a randomized controlled study NCT00566839 the comparative results of awake nonresectional or nonawake resectional lung volume reduction surgery. Method
Sixty-three patients were randomly assigned by computer to receive unilateral video-assisted thoracic surgery lung volume reduction surgery by a nonresectional technique performed through epidural anesthesia in 32 awake patients awake group or the standard resectional technique performed through general anesthesia in 31 patients control group. Primary outcomes were hospital stay and changes in forced expiratory volume in 1 second. During follow-up, the need of contralateral treatment because of loss of postoperative benefit was considered a failure event as death.
