부산대학교 도서관

A clinical pathway (CP) for pulmonary resection is now used for perioperative management in many institutions. Although one of the purposes of using CP is shortening the length of hospitalization, the decision of discharge has been mainly entrusted to the discretion of each surgeon in our institution. This study focused on 19 patients who required re-hospitalization within 30 days after discharge and reviewed clinical features. Re-hospitalization in 70% was due to inflammation-related causes, including fever, pneumonia, bronchopleural fistula, empyema, and acute exacerbation of interstitial pneumonia. These re-hospitalizations occurred regardless of the length of postoperative hospitalization. The white blood cell count and serum C-reactive protein (CRP) showed significantly higher values in the re-hospitalization group compared with 95 control cases that matched several clinical factors. We should be careful when performing discharge when the white blood cell count and CRP show high values.