Background: Standard thoracotomy necessitates division of thoracic large muscles leading to pain and impaired respiratory movements; muscle sparing postero-lateral thoracotomy has been suggested as an alternative to reduce the aforementioned effect. The aim of this study was to compare muscle saving posterolateral thoracotomy with standard thoracotomy.Methods: This study was a clinical trial. All patients who were candidates for elective thoracotomy were included and divided into two groups of muscle saving thoracotomy and standard thoracotomy randomly. Required time for opening and closing the chest, amount of prescribed narcotics, shoulder movements (flexion, extension, abduction and internal rotation), pulmonary function (FVC, FEV1, VC), development of seroma, and duration of hospitalization were assessed. Shoulder movements and pulmonary function were measured immediately before operation and 7 days later while pain measured in 1st and 7th post-operative days. Results: 60 patients (42 males) entered the study and there were no significant differences regarding age and sex distribution between two groups (p>0.05). Mean duration of opening the chest in muscle saving thoracotomy was significantly longer than standard procedure while the duration of closing the chest wall was significantly shorter in muscle saving thoracotomy (p<0.05). FVC and range of motion of the shoulder were higher and post-operative pain was lesser in muscle saving thoraocotomy than standard thoracotomy (p<0.05). There were no significant differences regarding prescribed narcotics and duration of hospital stay (p>0.05). Seroma developed in 13% (n=4) of muscle saving group. Conclusion: Muscle saving thoracotomy can be used as an appropriate alternative for standard postero-lateral thoracotomy in elective thoracic operations.

Background: Thoracotomy is one of the surgical operations which causes severe pain. In fact, this pain is one of the most excruciating pains caused by surgical operations. Different procedures are performed to decrease this pain which is associated with significant physiologic, mental and pathologic complications. Each of these procedures has its own advantage and disadvantages. In many centers, the most common treatment method used, is considered as the first choice. In this study, common methods of analgesia after thoracotomy were compared. Materials and Methods: During this meta-analysis, "Visual Analogue Scale" (VAS) of patients in epidural group was compared with those in four groups of systemic opioids, intercostal block, para- vertebral block and intrapleural infusion in the first 24 hours after surgery. Data obtained from 28 randomized clinical trials (RCT) which compared the procedures in 1697 patients after thoracotomy were gathered using random effect model, effect size index and the standardized difference average. Statistical values were evaluated and the results obtained using standard error, 5% maximum confidence limit and 5% minimum confidence limit. The obtained data were evaluated using studies performed between 1987 and 2005. After evaluating 314 titles and 185 abstracts, 28 articles were entered in the meta- analysis considering inclusion criteria. Four groups of epidural with systemic opioids, epidural with para-vertebral, epidural with intercostal and epidural with intrapleural analgesia were studied. Results: It was noticed that the epidural method in total 24 hours with 95% CI= -0.9802 to -0.3844 was a better procedure compared with systemic opioids. Epidural method did not show any difference with intercostals method in 24 hours mean with 95% CI= -0.2171 to +0.5906. Epidural method was also better than intrapleural in 24 hours mean with 95% CI= -1.1166 to-0.0106. When comparing epidural with para-vertebral, epidural was better with 95% CI= +0.1744 to -0.4527. Conclusion: According to the evaluations performed, epidural method is recommended as the method of choice to reduce pain after thoracotomy.