🔍 Key Findings
- Intra- and postoperative complications occurred only in stapled lobectomies, but the difference was not statistically significant (intra: p = .069, post: p = .112).
- Intraoperative hemorrhage was the most common complication (11.8%), followed by air leakage (2%).
- All self-ligating loop (SLL) lobectomies had zero complications (n=18), though the sample was small.
- Postoperative complications included 4 catastrophic events (cardiopulmonary arrest), all in stapled cases.
- Lung lobectomy technique was not associated with duration of chest tube use, hospitalization, or survival (p > .05).
- 94.3% of patients survived to discharge (82/87).
- SLLs are lower-cost and may be more feasible for thoracoscopic/minimally invasive approaches due to smaller port size (5mm vs. 12mm for staplers).
- A future superiority study would need ≥103 lobectomies per group to assess differences in complication rates.
