Digital versus analogue pleural drainage phase 1: prospective evaluation of interobserver reliability in the assessment of pulmonary air leaks.

Objectives: The ability to accurately characterize a pulmonary air leak is an essential skill in chest medicine and surgery. The objective was to evaluate interobserver variability in air leak assessments using analogue and digital pleural drainage systems.

Methods: Air leak severity in lung resection patients with a pulmonary air leak was prospectively evaluated by at least one thoracic surgeon, one surgical resident and one to two nurses using a standardized questionnaire. The first assessment was performed with pleural drains connected to an analogue system. Subsequently, patients were re-assessed after changing from the analogue to a digital drainage system. The thoracic surgeon's evaluation was considered the reference standard for comparison. Agreement between observers was quantified using the kappa (κ) statistic.

Results: A total of 128 air leak evaluations were completed in 30 patients (thoracic surgeon = 30; nurses = 56; resident = 30; physiotherapists = 12). The mean time between analogue and digital assessment was 2.16 (±1.66) h. The level of observer agreement regarding air leak severity significantly increased from very slight to substantial when using the digital drainage system [analogue κ = 0.03; confidence interval (CI): 0.04-0.11; P = 0.40) (digital κ = 0.61; CI: 0.49-0.73; P < 0.01]. Similar improvements were observed in subgroups of health-care professionals using digital technology.

Conclusions: Digital pleural drainage technology improves the agreement level between members of the health-care team when assessing the severity of a pulmonary air leak after lung resection.