As surgical techniques and postoperative care are improving, a pneumonectomy is a relatively popular surgical method in disease which is not treated completely with other types of pulmonary resection. However, a postpneumonectomy complication is a serious life-threatening problem if it occurrs. The purpose of this study is to evaluate determinants for postoperative mortality after pneumonectomy.

Patients were divided for study as follows: the Dead group versus the Alive group. To determine whether age, operation site, operation time, intraoperative fiuid intake, urine output, blood loss, complications, preoperative and intraoperative arterial blood gas analyses, and preoperative pulmonary function tests influence the determinants for postoperative mortality after pneumonectomy, a rettospecive analysis was performed on 71 patients who had undergone pneumonectomy from 1990to 1994 in Kosin Medical College Hospital.

Operation time and blood loss were longer and greater respectively in the Dead group. The intraoperative PaO2 was lower and incidence of complications was more frequent in the Dead group.Otherwise there were no significant differences between two groups.

We concluded that operation time, blood loss, incidence of complications and intra-operative PaO2 were closely related with postoperative mortality.