Post-Operative Kinesio Taping Impact on Pain in Thoracotomy vs Thoracoscopy

Fueled by its utmost importance, thoracic surgery has quickly evolved to produce techniques that improve its means and purposes, but most importantly fully harness its goals. Thoracic surgeries include multiple techniques; thoracotomy and thoracoscopy are among the most highly applied types since they are involved in the diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer, cardiovascular disease, and other comorbidities, but most notably are the hallmark of lung resection.

Thoracotomy is surgery to open the chest. This procedure involves an incision in the thorax, between the ribs, to allow for operating on the lungs. A surgeon can use this incision to remove part of or the whole lung. Usually, this is done to treat lung cancer. Sometimes it's used to treat problems with the heart or other structures in the chest, such as the diaphragm. On the other hand, thoracoscopy is a surgical procedure for the examination of the chest, particularly the pleural cavity by means of a thoracoscope. Thoracoscopy can be done as part of the Video-Assisted Thoracic Surgery procedure (VATS). Uniportal VATS makes use of 1 single port incision.

Both thoracoscopy and thoracotomy have been thoroughly studied by recent literature, and even compared. However, when properly surveyed, research is found to be lacking in the field of morbidity reduction, namely when concerning pain management. This is quite alarming as the main complication of thoracic surgeries is pain, which may even extend to post-thoracotomy pain syndrome (PTPS), which occurs in 21 to 61% of patients and may persist up to four to five years after surgery in 30% of patients.

As pain is a major debilitating factor to the patient, decreasing it will serve as a major improvement for patient morbidity and satisfaction.

Analgesics are still considered one of the most effective approaches in terms of pain relief. Though the use of analgesics has been recently viewed to approach the limits of abuse, both economically and pharmacologically. This includes the epidemic overuse of opioids and such. This issue has also been at the forefront of recent medical research and at the top of the medical world's agenda for the past few years. This calls the scientific community to find a proper solution.