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Original Articles: General Thoracic

Invited Commentary

Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 703 19th St S, Zeigler Research Building, Room 736, Birmingham, AL 35294

(Email: rcerfolio@uab.edu).

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

Dr Sakakura and colleagues [1] have presented a well-written and important study on the use of Blake drains compared with more rigid or thicker chest tubes for control of the pleural space after pulmonary resection. The authors conclude that the 19-French Blake "prevented accurate information about the postoperative condition within the thorax" [1]. Despite the fact that I agree with the authors that Blake drains do present a different set of problems when compared with the more traditional thicker and more rigid drains, I am not sure that this conclusion can be reached based on this current study. Careful review of this study shows several concerns of the study methodology.

First, the authors used a 19-French Blake . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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Fluid Drainage and Air Evacuation Characteristics of Blake and Conventional Drains Used After Pulmonary Resection

Noriaki Sakakura, Takayuki Fukui, Shoichi Mori, Shunzo Hatooka, Kohei Yokoi, and Tetsuya Mitsudomi
Ann. Thorac. Surg. 2009 87: 1539-1545. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]