Surgical and cancer characteristics of the study population stratified by compliance to the 6-month follow-up protocol
| Baseline | Completed 6-month follow-up | Dropout at 6 months | |
| Patients | 80 | 65 | 15 |
| VATS | 46 (58) | 34 (52) | 12 (80) |
| Resection degree | |||
| Wedge resection/segmentectomy | 26 (33) | 17 (26) | 9 (60) |
| Lobectomy | 45 (56) | 39 (60) | 6 (33) |
| Bilobectomy | 3 (4) | 3 (5) | 0 |
| Pneumonectomy | 6 (7) | 6 (9) | 0 |
| Duration of surgery min | 132±60 120 (30–320) | 136±58 120 (45–320) | 99±47 95 (30–150) |
| Duration of chest tubes h | 68±77 29 (8–360) | 74±83 33 (8–360) | 44±48 24 (11–172) |
| Length of hospital stay# days | 8±5 6 (3–30) | 8±5 6 (3–25) | 7±7 5 (3–30) |
| Post-operative chemotherapy | 20 (25) | 19 (29) | 1 (7) |
| Cancer characteristics | |||
| NSCLC | 54 (67) | 47 (72) | 7 (47) |
| Stage IA/IB¶ | 13/18 (24/34) | 11/15 (23.5/32) | 2/3 (28.5/43) |
| Stage IIA/IIB¶ | 1/11 (2/20) | 1/9 (2/19) | 0/2 (0/28.5) |
| Stage IIIA¶ | 11 (20) | 11 (23.5) | 0 |
| Metastatic tumour | 11 (14) | 10 (16) | 1 (6) |
| Nonmalignancy | 15 (19) | 8 (12) | 7 (47) |
Values are presented as n, n (%), mean±sd or median (minimum–maximum range). VATS: video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery; NSCLC: nonsmall cell lung cancer. #: length of hospital stay includes transfer to other units; ¶: data refer only to NSCLC.