Therapeutic potential of physical stabilization in VATS pain control: a randomized controlled trial

Video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) has been widely used for low invasiveness and shorter recovery time. However, patients receiving VATS still experienced moderate-to-severe pain even under both regional and systemic analgesia. Little is known on the effect of non-pharmaceutical method with physical stabilization for post-VATS pain control. The study aims to investigate the feasibility of physical stabilization as a surrogate method for pain control. The single-blinded, randomized-controlled trial recruited the patients into physical stabilization group and standard care group after VATS. The patients in the intervention group tied a thoracic belt for all day, while the control group did not. Both groups had intravenous patient-controlled analgesia (IVPCA) and on-demand oral analgesics. The primary outcome was the visual analogue scale for pain at the 6th, 24th and 48th hour post-VATS and at the hospital discharge. There were 18 patients assigned to the interventional group and 18 patients assigned to the control group. Four patients in the control group were dropped out from the study. Physical stabilization was found to enhance the analgesic effect post-operative 24-48 h compared to standard care (Difference of VAS: 1.11 ± 0.68 v.s. 0.5 ± 0.86, p = 0.031). It had no effect on the dose of IVPCA or the use of oral analgesic agents. No complications direct to the thoracic belt or adverse outcome from the surgery were found in the study. Physical stabilization with thoracic belt to patients receiving VATS benefits to pain control, especially between the 24th and 48th hour post-VATS. Clinical Trial Registry number: NCT04735614.