Successfully Reducing Fat-modified Diet Duration for Treating Postoperative Chylothorax in Children.

Background: Medical management, primarily a fat-modified diet (FMD), is the mainstay of treatment for most patients with chylothorax. Duration of FMD is traditionally reported as 6 weeks, but no studies have demonstrated the shortest effective duration that prevents recurrence of chylothorax. The aim of this study was to decrease FMD duration to 2 weeks in children with postoperative chylothorax without a significant increase in recurrence.

Methods: This single-center study included pediatric (aged <18 years) patients in whom chylothorax developed within 30 days of cardiac surgery. Patients with cavopulmonary anastomoses were excluded. The preintervention cohort consisted of 19 patients with a diagnosis of chylothorax between February 2014 and June 2015, and the postintervention cohort comprised 98 patients from July 2015 to December 2019. FMD duration was decreased from 6 weeks to 4 weeks in May 2016 and to 2 weeks in June 2018. Recurrence was defined as a return of a chylous effusion requiring chest tube placement or hospital readmission within 30 days of resuming a regular diet.

Results: The median duration of FMD decreased from 42 days (interquartile range, 30, 43 days) in the preintervention cohort to 26 days (interquartile range, 14, 29 days) in the postintervention cohort, with no recurrence of chylothorax in any group. Compliance with the FMD duration instruction in the 6-week, 4-week, and 2-week groups was 100%, 84%, and 67% respectively. Compared with the first 6 months, compliance with the 2-week FMD instruction during the final 12 months increased from 40% (6/15) to 79% (26/33).

Conclusions: At the study center, FMD duration decreased from 6 weeks to 2 weeks without any recurrence of chylothorax.