Early outcomes of lung resections in non-small cell lung cancer after COVID-19 pneumonia

Objective: There is limited literature on patients with a history of COVID-19 pneumonia who underwent anatomical lung resection for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). This study was aimed to share the early postoperative outcomes in patients who underwent lung resection after COVID-19 pneumonia. Materials and methods: We retrospectively evaluated 30 patients who underwent lobectomy with thoracotomy and systematic mediastinal lymph node dissection due to NSCLC in a single center between November 2018 and September 2021. The patients were divided into two groups regarding COVID-19 pneumonia history; the COVID-19 group consisted of 14 patients (46.7%) and the non-COVID-19 group 16 (53.3%) patients. The patients' age, gender, comorbidity, Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) score, forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1) value, tumor type and size, resection type, postoperative air leak duration, total drainage volume, drain removal time, postoperative complications, and length of stay (LOS) were recorded. Results: 9 (30%) patients were female, and 21 (70%) were male. The mean age was 62.1 +/- 8.91 years. Our comparison of postoperative air leak duration, total drainage volume, time to drain removal, postoperative complications, and LOS between the COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 groups revealed no statistically significant difference. Conclusion: Anatomical lung resection can be performed safely in NSCLC patients with a history of COVID-19 pneumonia without significant difference in early postoperative morbidity and mortality. (c) 2022 Asian Surgical Association and Taiwan Robotic Surgery Association. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).