Papers of the Week

Video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) is usually performed under general anesthesia with a double-lumen tube. Recently, VATS without tracheal intubation in a patient with severe respiratory dysfunction has been reported. A case of nonintubated (also known as awake or tubeless) VATS using adaptive servo ventilation (ASV), a form of noninvasive positive pressure ventilation providing varying amounts of ventilator support, is presented. This is the first report of nonintubated VATS using ASV.