Bronchopleural fistula is a serious postoperative complication after pulmonary surgery. The source article reports a single-center retrospective analysis examining the efficacy and safety of bronchoscopic submucosal injection of polidocanol for treating postoperative bronchopleural fistulas with a maximal diameter of 5 mm.
The authors aimed to evaluate clinical outcomes and procedure-related adverse events after this minimally invasive approach in a cohort of patients who developed postoperative bronchopleural fistulas.
The study design reported in the source was retrospective. A total of 29 patients with postoperative bronchopleural fistula were included. All enrolled patients had fistula diameters of ≤5 mm and underwent the same described therapeutic approach: bronchoscopic submucosal injection of polidocanol.
The abstract does not provide additional details on inclusion or exclusion criteria, the time interval from surgery to treatment, patient demographic breakdown beyond MeSH index terms (Adult, Middle Aged, Aged, Male, Female), or the duration of clinical follow-up after the procedure. Specifics on concomitant treatments, prior interventions, or whether patients had chest tubes or ongoing pleural drainage were not reported in the abstract.
All patients received bronchoscopic submucosal injection of polidocanol. The abstract confirms the route (bronchoscopic submucosal) and the sclerosing agent (polidocanol) but does not report technical parameters such as concentration, injected volume per site, number of injections, use of sedation or anesthesia, or peri-procedural prophylaxis. Details about imaging or bronchoscopic criteria used to confirm fistula closure are not provided in the source abstract.
The overall treatment efficacy rate among the 29 patients was reported as 86.2%. Objective measures of patient status improved after treatment: both the Karnofsky Performance Status (KPS) and dyspnea scores showed statistically significant improvement when compared with pretreatment values (both P <0.05).
The abstract does not specify the absolute or mean changes in KPS or dyspnea scores, the timepoints at which outcomes were measured after treatment, nor whether efficacy was assessed by clinical, radiographic, or bronchoscopic confirmation of fistula closure. Long-term recurrence rates or need for additional interventions were not described in the abstract.
Procedure-related adverse events reported in the cohort included:
The authors reported no procedure-related infections and no deaths associated with the intervention in this series. The abstract does not provide grading of adverse events, duration of these events, or whether they required additional therapy (for example, antibiotics, transfusion, chest tube placement, or surgical intervention).
Overall, the reported safety profile in the abstract suggests that complications were generally limited in frequency and severity within this cohort.
The article authors are Y P Gao, J J Wang, M Zheng, H X Fu, Y Wang, and Y Z Zhou, all affiliated with the Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Emergency General Hospital, Beijing, China. The PubMed entry includes an English abstract of a Chinese-language article.
The conflict of interest statement in the source declares that all authors reported no conflicts of interest.
The source provides limited methodological and procedural detail in the abstract. Important information that is not reported in the abstract includes:
Because these details were not reported in the abstract, they cannot be inferred and would require consultation of the full-text article for comprehensive appraisal.
In this retrospective series of 29 postoperative patients with bronchopleural fistulas ≤5 mm, bronchoscopic submucosal injection of polidocanol was associated with an overall efficacy rate of 86.2% and statistically significant improvements in Karnofsky Performance Status and dyspnea scores (both P <0.05). Reported complications were fever, mild hemoptysis, and one case of worsening pneumothorax; no procedure-related infections or deaths occurred. The abstract supports the authors' conclusion that this bronchoscopic sclerotherapy technique may be an effective and safe option for small postoperative bronchopleural fistulas, while recognizing that additional procedural and follow-up details are not provided in the abstract and would be needed for full evaluation.