Short- and medium-term outcomes after uniportal and multiportal video-assisted thoracic surgery lobectomy in elderly patients with non-small cell lung cancer.

Purpose To investigate the short- and medium-term outcomes following treatment with uniportal video-assisted thoracic surgery lobectomy (uniportal VATS) in elderly patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods We conducted a retrospective analysis on the clinical and follow-up data of 74 elderly patients with NSCLC who underwent uniportal VATS between January 2015 and January 2020. One-to-one propensity score matching (PSM) was employed to select 71 elderly patients with NSCLC who underwent multiportal video-assisted thoracoscopic lobectomy (multiportal VATS) during the same period. Results The baseline characteristics of the two patient groups were comparable, with no statistically significant differences in postoperative complications, operation time, conversion to thoracotomy, or lymph node dissection. The amount of intraoperative blood loss and postoperative pain were lower in the uniportal VATS group than in the multiportal VATS group. The 3-year overall survival and disease-free survival of the two groups were similar. Conclusions Uniportal VATS achieved similar short- and medium-term outcomes as Multiportal VATS in elderly patients with NSCLC.