Prolonged Air Leak After Pleurectomy/Decortication Surgery in Two Patients with COVID-19 Pneumonia

Abstract

Surgical treatment is a part of multimodal treatment in patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma in appropriate clinical stage and medical condition. The pleurectomy/decortication is a surgical technique for mesothelioma and its challenging morbidity is prolonged air leak. In case of prolonged air leakage, both the duration of tube thoracostomy and the risk of its complications increase. An increase in this complication is expected due to reasons such as pleural adhesions developing as a result of exaggerated inflammation in COVID-19 pneumonia and increased susceptibility to tearing in the alveoli. Here, we present the treatment of prolonged air leak after pleurectomy-decortication surgery in 2 cases of malignant pleural mesothelioma who were scheduled for surgery after induction therapy and who developed COVID-19 pneumonia during the preparation process.