Abstract
Postoperative care of patients undergoing thoracic surgery focuses mainly on obtaining an early recovery from anaesthesia and mechanical ventilation, achieving optimal postoperative pain control, appropiate fluid administeration, preventing postoperative pulmonary complications and facilitating early mobilization. The management varies from observing and monitoring of vital signs to providing cardiorespiratory and other organs support. The optimal postoperative patient destination which could be the recovery room, high dependency unit (HDU) or an intensive care unit (ICU), depends on the combination of patient and procedurerelated risk factors and the availability of local infrastructure. However, this initial assessment may be modified by intraoperative complications.
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Sharma, B., Kohli, S. (2020). General Principles of Postoperative Care. In: Sood, J., Sharma, S. (eds) Clinical Thoracic Anesthesia. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0746-5_21
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