People with primary spontaneous pneumothorax often need surgery to remove lung bubbles. This review looked at 1,151 patients who had the procedure. Some had a single small incision, while others had multiple small cuts. The goal was to see if fewer cuts meant better recovery without more danger.
The data shows clear benefits for the single-port approach. Patients stayed in the hospital fewer days and reported less pain after the operation. They also experienced fewer cases of numbness or tingling in the chest wall. These improvements come from a technique that uses fewer entry points into the body.
However, the time spent in the operating room did not change between the two methods. Neither approach led to more complications or a higher chance of the lung bubble returning. Because the evidence comes from observational studies rather than randomized trials, we must be careful about claiming one method is definitively better. Still, the results suggest that a single-port approach offers a safe and feasible alternative for recovery.