Wedge Resection or Parietal Pleurectomy for the Treatment of Recurrent Pneumothorax (WOPP)

Primary spontaneous pneumothoraces (PSP) represent a significant public health problem, occurring in young healthy subjects without pre-existing lung disease or precedent medical intervention or trauma with a reported incidence of up to 18-28/100 000 per year. PSP treatment often requires thoracic surgery to restore lung expansion and to prevent de novo lung collapse. Despite the presence of elaborated guidelines by the British Thoracic Society (BTS) postulating apical wedge resection of the lung and total parietal pleurectomy (WRPP), the majority of German hospitals gathered experience especially in limiting surgery to cost-saving partial apical parietal pleurectomy or yet apical pleural abrasion (PP). Until today, hardly any reliable data exist to analyze and compare the varying treatment approaches regarding efficacy and efficiency. In this randomized, multi-centric clinical trial, both treatment approaches will be compared. For this purpose, candidates for surgery will be randomized into one of the two treatment groups after informed consent has been obtained. Patients will be followed for 2 years by the participating centres to be able to evaluate the long-term effect of the surgical interventions.