What Happens After Surgery?

After your surgery, you will be taken to the Thoracic Surgery Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Most patients are not required to be on a respirator and are awake immediately after surgery. You will receive an epidural for pain control and a chest drainage tube will remain in place. If all goes as expected, you will leave the surgical ICU within a few days and be transferred to the Thoracic Intermediate Care Unit. The hospital stay is usually from 7 to 14 days.

Some patients undergoing pleurectomy will stay on the respirator overnight after surgery.

Before you are discharged from the hospital, your surgeon will tell you when you should schedule your first follow-up visit. Generally, the doctor will ask you to come back about one week after your surgery. If you are coming from a long distance, it is expected that you stay in the area until your first follow-up visit is completed.

Chemotherapy and Radiation
About 4 to 6 weeks after your surgery, you will undergo chemotherapy and radiation. You may elect to go to your own oncologist, or we can refer you to the Thoracic Oncology Program at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Recommendations for chemotherapy will be made to your oncologist; however, the exact treatment will be left up to him/her.

Recovery
Overall, recovery tends to be slow for most patients. Even at six months after surgery, about 60 percent of pneumonectomy patients find that their exercise tolerance is still significantly limited by shortness of breath. Complete recovery time is one year.