We evaluated an optimized patient care program for patients undergoing lung resections in a prospective randomized pilot study. Using this fast track clinical pathway the rate of pulmonary complications could be significantly decreased as compared to a conservative treatment regimen; our results support the implementation of an optimized perioperative treatment in lung surgery in order to reduce pulmonary complications after major lung surgery.

An optimized patient care program in open infrarenal aortic aneurysm repair shows favorable results concerning need for postoperative assisted mechanical ventilation, time to full enteral feeding, and incidence of medical complications. Further ranomized multicentric trials are necessary to justify broad implementation (clinical trials. gov identifier NCT 00615888).

In patients undergoing lung surgery, single intercostal nerve block plus i.v. patient-controlled analgesia with morphine is not as effective as patient-controlled EDA with respect to pain control and restoration of pulmonary function.

We introduced and evaluated an optimized patient care program for patients undergoing open infrarenal aortic aneurysm repair which showed a significant advantage for "fast-track" patients in terms of postoperative morbidity.

Endovascular treatment (EVT) in chronic type B dissections has a high technical success rate and low mortality/morbidity. However reintervention rates are not negligible which might reduce the clinical success of EVT. Future investigations should aim at identifying patients who benefit from EVT at better defining the timing of EVT and at determining if entry sealing alone is sufficient.