Predicting Postoperative Lung Function Following Lobectomy

A preliminary study identifies early postoperative lung volume changes in patients with non‑small cell lung cancer following video‑assisted thoracic surgery using CT volumetry

“…According to widely used algorithms, which were developed to predict postoperative PF based on the preoperative evaluated and resected segment, the postoperative PF should be inferior to the preoperative one (6)(7)(8). However, previous studies have already verified that it is imprecise to predict the postoperative function using these algorithms (9)(10)(11). This observation is reasonable and inevitable, since all of these algorithms are based on linear regression and ignore the variation of the postoperative lung volume re-expansion over time and the effects of compen-Table VII.…”

“…Furthermore, the prediction of the postoperative PF has been associated with long-term survival following surgery compared with that in preoperative lung function (5). Several methods have been developed to predict the postoperative PF (6)(7)(8), such as perfusion scans and segment counting methods; however, it has been suggested that these methods are inaccurate (9)(10)(11). The postoperative PF could be theoretically determined by the residual parenchymal volume following lung resection, since the adult lung generally does not have the ability to regenerate new alveolar septal tissues (12).…”