CT Diagnostics of Early Postoperative Complications After Lung Cancer Treatment

Objective: to evaluate the capabilities of computed tomography (CT) in the diagnosis and differential diagnosis of early postoperative complications in the treatment of lung cancer. Material and methods. In the Department of Thoracic Oncology, Pavlov First Saint Petersburg State Medical University, 564 patients were operated for lung cancer from 2014 to 2025. The mean age of patients was 64±0.7 (from 29 to 90) years. Surgeries performed included 426 (75.6%) anatomical lung resections (lobectomy, bilobectomy), and 138 (24.4%) pneumonectomies. All patients in the early postoperative period (up to 30 days) were prescribed a chest survey radiography. To diagnose postoperative complications, CT was performed in 77 cases (13.6%). Results. Serious postoperative complications (IIIB and higher according to the Clavien–Dindo–Strasberg classification) after anatomical lung resections occurred in 27 (6.3%) patients, after pneumonectomy – in 50 (36.2%). Based on CT data, diagnostics and differential diagnostics of postoperative complications in surgical treatment of lung cancer were carried out. The variants of complications in patients who underwent open or video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery for lung cancer in the early postoperative period were considered. Conclusion. CT allows identifying pathognomonic signs of different variants of early postoperative complications in the treatment of lung cancer, which is of significant importance for the tactics of patient management, their survival and prognosis of the disease course.

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