Comparison of postoperative pain between robotic and uniportal video-assisted thoracic surgery for anatomic lung resection in patients with stage I lung cancer.

Objective: Uniportal video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (U-VATS) and robot-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (RATS) are widely used, minimally invasive procedures. The present study aimed to compare postoperative pain following U-VATS and RATS anatomical lung resection in patients with clinical stage I lung cancer.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective analysis of the data from 133 patients with clinical stage I lung cancer who underwent U-VATS (n = 63), four-arm RATS (n = 70) lobectomy, or segmentectomy between August 2020 and August 2023. Early postoperative outcomes, pain scores through postoperative day 7, and duration of postoperative analgesic use 60 days after surgery were compared using propensity score-matched analysis.

Results: In the propensity score-matched analysis, the U-VATS group had a shorter operative time than the RATS group (160 vs. 202 min, respectively; P < 0.001). However, no significant differences were observed in blood loss, chest tube duration, complications, post operative stay length, or number of dissected lymph nodes and stations. The U-VATS group exhibited significantly lower pain scores than the RATS group throughout the entire postoperative period, particularly on postoperative days 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7(P = 0.006, 0.044, 0.032, 0.041, 0.007, and 0.024, respectively). The number of patients who used analgesics for at least 2 months was lower in the U-VATS group than in the RATS group (4 [8.2%] vs. 17 [34.0%], respectively; P = 0.002).

Conclusion: U-VATS anatomical lung resection in patients with clinical stage I lung cancer has less postoperative pain than RATS.