[Complication Management in Thoracic Surgery - Results of a Delphi Consensus Conference of the German Society for Thoracic Surgery].

Abstract

In order to ensure a good outcome after thoracic surgical procedures and to minimise the complication rate, prompt and adequate complication management is of fundamental importance.After a questionnaire had been compiled by a working group of three thoracic surgical experts of the German Society of Thoracic Surgery (DGT) in leading positions, an attempt was made to develop a consensus recommendation (> 75%) for adequate complication management in thoracic surgery, within the framework of a multi-stage "Delphi process" among suitable experts. In this process, after conducting two anonymous online question rounds, a final discussion and summary of the results took place within a DGT expert conference.Of 93 selected experts, 63 (68%) participated in the 1st and 41 (44%) in the 2nd online question round. 54 experts participated in the final TED voting at the 2020 expert conference. After division into the different categories "haemorrhage", "parenchymal fistulae", "bronchial stump insufficiency", "nerve lesions" and "varia", consensus was achieved on a recommended course of action for a large number of the questions.This paper is a summary of the "Delphi consensus process" of the Expert Conference 2020 of the German Society for Thoracic Surgery for the management of peri-operative complications.