Background: In order to evaluate the reduced postoperative pain of complete video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (cVATS), a study was conducted to compare acute postoperative pain between cVATS and open thoracotomy employing continuous epidural analgesia (EA).Methods: A total of 62 patients, 49 males and 13 females with a mean age of 54.8 years, who had undergone thoracic surgery at our institution from November 2013 to June 2015 were enrolled in this study. We statistically investigated differences in the intensity of postoperative pain between cVATS with or without EA and between cVATS and open thoracotomy under EA. The degree of pain was measured using a visual analog scale, nine times for three days after the surgery. Results:The mean postoperative pain scores were stronger in the cVATS without EA group than in the group treated with EA at every single observation point, although there were no significant differences.When employing EA, no significant differences were found between cVATS and open thoracotomy. Conclusions:The use of EA may overshadow the benefits of using cVATS over open thoracotomy.

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The postoperative morbidity and long-term results of schizophrenic patients with lung cancer were acceptable. Therefore, even in patients with schizophrenia, surgical treatment for lung cancer should be recommended when deemed to be necessary.

The study determined that to successfully obstruct the mechanisms causing hiccups, it is necessary that the level of InspCO not only increases at the same level as EtCO , but also reaches approximately 50 mm Hg.

Our results show strong similarities with reports from European countries despite the different climates. We conclude that the occurrence of pneumothorax appears to correlate with some weather conditions in Japan.