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Ann Thorac Surg 2000;70:251-252
© 2000 The Society of Thoracic Surgeons

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Discussion

Discussion

DR LEWIS WETSTEIN (Freehold, NJ): Doctor Potaris, I would like to congratulate you on a very nice study, and your results are excellent. I am confused, however, with your methodology. How did you decide on which patients to operate? Your study began with 118 patients, but you only operated on, or addressed 47. For those of us who do not see this problem that often, have you developed an algorithm to assist in their management? For example, how does one decide which patients can safely be observed? Conversely, when should we be more aggressive?

DR POTARIS: Thank you. In this paper we presented only the 47 patients who underwent operations. We did not present data from the other two groups of patients. The decision on whether or not to operate on patients with a broncholithiasis is based on the development of complications of the disease. We would not recommend resection in an asymptomatic patient. We did not compare the three different groups that I mentioned in the beginning because this had been done in a previous paper from our . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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Role of surgical resection in broncholithiasis

Konstantinos Potaris, Daniel L. Miller, Victor F. Trastek, Claude Deschamps, Mark S. Allen, and Peter C. Pairolero
Ann. Thorac. Surg. 2000 70: 248-251. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]