Comparison of Videothoracoscopy and Thoracotomy in Surgical Treatment of Pulmonary Hydatid Cyst Disease

Objective: To evaluate the outcomes of videothoracoscopic and open surgeries for pulmonary hydatid cysts. Study Design: Descriptive study. Place and Duration of Study: Department of Thoracic Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Balikesir University, Turkey, between May 2015 and March 2020. Methodology: Patients who underwent surgery for pulmonary hydatid cysts were evaluated retrospectively, for the age, gender, symptoms, cyst size and localisation, preferred surgery, duration of surgery, the extent of the intraoperative bleeding, duration of the chest drainage, hospitalisation time, and postoperative complications. The relationship between the categorical variables was examined with the Chi-square and Fisher's exact tests and the relationship between the non-parametric data and continuous variables with the Mann-Whitney U-test. Results: A total of 60 patients included in the study; 23 underwent videothoracoscopic surgery and 37 had thoracotomy. There were no statistically significant differences between groups as gender, age, location and size of cyst. The videothoracoscopic surgery has superiority to thoracotomy group in terms of lower duration of operation, less perioperative bleeding (p = 0.005), early chest tube removal and lower hospitalisation time (both p <0.001). But there were no statistical difference between groups in complication rates (p = 0.340). Conclusion: Videothoracoscopic removal of pulmonary hydatid cyst is a safe and advantageous procedure comparing to thoracotomy. There is a need for prospective studies with a larger sample size.