Thoracic Anesthesia Intubated Versus Nonintubated General Anesthesia for Video-Assisted Thoracoscopic Surgery—A Case-Control Study

A lthough deemed mandatory to provide safe and optimal operating conditions for surgical manipulation, general anesthesia with endobronchial intubation and 1-lung positive-pressure ventilation for thoracic surgery has been known to cause lung injury. Nonintubated thoracic anesthetic techniques for video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) in awake and sedated patients can be an alternate method to decrease the overall invasiveness and surgical stress. A nonintubated general anesthetic technique with airway support via a supraglottic airway device with the patient awake or under sedation was developed. A retrospective observational study was conducted to compare the nonintubated general anesthetic technique to an intubated general anesthesia group for minor VATS procedures.