Evaluating the rate of post-surgical complications between three surgical methods in management of pulmonary hydatid disease

Introduction
Hydatid disease is a zoonotic disease caused by Echinococcus. Surgery remains the gold standard approach of treatment.

Aim
This study reports on 10 years of experience on surgical management of 78 cases of pulmonary hydatid disease and compares the rates of post-surgical complications between three approaches.

Material and methods
Three different surgical approaches – the Ugon method, cystectomy and lobectomy – were performed for pulmonary hydatid disease treatment during a 1-year follow-up program. The relationships between patient’s age, sex, cyst location and surgical approach and occurrence of post-surgical complications were first assessed. Then post-surgical complications between these three methods were compared.

Results
From 78 patients, 51.5% were female and 48.5% were male (whose average age was 36.1). Hydatid cysts were found in the right (43.58%) and left (37.17%) lung while 19.23% of patients had bilateral cysts. Patient’s age, sex and cyst location did not have any significant effect on the occurrence of complications. Post-surgical complications were only dependent on the surgical approach. 23% of the patients had post-surgical complications (including air leak, fistula, empyema, seroma and wound infection) and air leak was the most frequent one.

Conclusions
Since complications were only dependent on the surgical method, the rate of post-surgical complications were compared between the three approaches. Cystectomy and lobectomy had similar rates of complications, which were lower than that of the Ugon method. It can be concluded that cystectomy is the method of choice for management of pulmonary hydatid disease, with the lowest rate of complications.