Background: Thoracotomy results in severe postoperative pain potentially leading to chronic pain. We investigated the potential benefits of intravenous parecoxib on postoperative analgesia combined with thoracic epidural analgesia (TEA).Methods: Eighty-six patients undergoing thoracic surgery were randomized into two groups. Patientcontrolled epidural analgesia (PCEA) was used until chest tubes were removed. Patients received parecoxib (group P) or placebo (group C) intravenously just 0.5 h before the operation and every 12 h after operation for 3 days. The intensity of pain was measured by using a visual analogue scale (VAS) and recorded at 2, 4, 8, 24, 48, 72 h after operation. The valid number of PCA, the side effects and the overall satisfaction to analgesic therapy in 72 h were recorded. Venous blood samples were taken before operation, the 1 st and 3 rd day after operation for plasma cortisol, adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), interleukin-6 and tumor necrosis factor-α level. The occurrence of residual pain was recorded using telephone questionnaire 2 and 12 months after surgery.Results: Postoperative pain scores at rest and on coughing were significantly lower with the less valid count of PCA and greater patient satisfaction in group P (P<0.01). Adverse effect and the days fit for discharge were comparable between two groups. The cortisol levels in placebo group were higher than parecoxib group at T2. The level of ACTH both decreased in two groups after operation but it was significantly lower in group P than that in group C. There were no changes in plasma IL-6 and TNF-α levels before and after analgesia at T 1 and T 2 (P>0.05). The occurrence of residual pain were 25% and 51.2% separately in group P and C 3 months postoperatively (P<0.05).Conclusions: Intravenous parecoxib in multimodal analgesia improves postoperative analgesia provided by TEA, relieves stress response after thoracotomy, and may restrain the development of chronic pain.

Background: It is controversial as to which ventilation mode is better during one-lung ventilation (OLV). This study was designed to figure out whether there was any difference between volume controlled ventilation (VCV) and pressure controlled ventilation (PCV) on oxygenation and postoperative complications under the condition of protective ventilation (PV).Methods: Sixty-five patients undergoing video-assisted thoracoscopic lobectomy were randomized into two groups. Patients in group V received VCV mode during OLV while patients in group P received PCV.The tidal volume (VT) in both groups was 6 mL per predicted body weight (PBW). Positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP) was set at the level of 5 cmH 2 O in both groups. Arterial gas analysis were performed preoperatively with room air (T 0 ), at 15 mins (T 1 ) and 1 h (T 2 ) after OLV, at the end of OLV (T 3 ), 30 min after PACU admission (T 4 ), 24 h after surgery (post-operative day 1, POD 1 ) and 48 h after surgery (postoperative day 2, POD 2 ). Peak inspiratory airway pressure (Ppeak) and plateau airway pressure (Pplat) were recorded at T 1 , T 2 and T 3 . The perioperative complications were also recorded.Result: Sixty-four patients completed this study. Ppeak in group V was significantly higher than that in group P (T 1 22.3±2.9 vs. 18.7±2.1 cmH 2 O; T 2 22.2±2.8 vs. 18.7±2.6 cmH 2 O). There were no differences with Pplat and intraoperative oxygenation index (T 1 203.3±109.7 vs. 198.1±93.4; T 2 216.8±79.1 vs. 232.1±101.4).The postoperative oxygenation index (T 4 525.0±160.9 vs. 520.7±127.1, post-operative day 1 (POD 1 ) 452.1±161.3 vs. 446.1±109.1; post-operative day 2 (POD 2 ) 403.8±93.4 vs. 396.7±92.8) and postoperative complications were also comparable between these two groups.Conclusions: When they were utilized during OLV, PCV and VCV had the same performance on the intraoperative oxygenation and postoperative complications under the condition of PV. J Thorac Dis 2017;9(5):1303-1309 jtd.amegroups.com ventilation (PCV) with low VT (6 mL/kg) was associated with lower incidence of postoperative lung dysfunction than volume controlled ventilation (VCV) with large VT (10 mL/kg). In 2007, Schultz et al. (5) published recommendations on intraoperative VT and suggested utilizing lower VT (≤6 mL/kg) in patients with abnormal lungs and/or risk factors for ALI.With further studying of small VT ventilation, some new findings came out. Blum et al. (6) showed that the incidence of postoperative ARDS was 0.2% in a general surgical population and the intraoperative risk factor included driver pressure instead of low tide volume. In thoracic surgery, the expected incidence of postoperative ALI was as high as 4.2% (7) and the independent risk factors included intraoperative ventilatory pressure index instead of VT. designed a study to prove their hypothesis that higher VT would be associated with higher risk of respiratory failure secondary to ALI, but the result showed that mean first hour peak airway pressure but not VT was associated with ALI. The clinical resea...