Do preoperative pulmonary function tests predict postoperative pulmonary complications in patients undergoing surgical treatment of scoliosis?
Deterioration of preoperative pulmonary function tests and transthoracic surgical approach are associated with increased postoperative pulmonary complications in scoliosis surgery.
The incidence of postoperative pulmonary complications increased with the deterioration of pulmonary function tests. The posterior procedure had a very low incidence of postoperative pulmonary complications, but a transthoracic procedure increased the complications significantly. Preoperative pulmonary symptoms usually predicted abnormal results of pulmonary function tests but had no correlation with postoperative pulmonary complication.
Zhang et al. (Sat,) studied this question.