Patients Undergoing Lung Surgery clinical trials

CAM in Post Surgical Management in Cardiothoracic Surgery

This is a randomized controlled clinical trial in which the combination of 4 different CAM modalities (Complementary & Alternative Medicine) will be applied during the postoperative period to patients undergoing open heart- or lung surgery and expected to be hospitalized for more than 5 days. Elective and Urgent surgical patients will be randomly assigned to a treatment - and to a control group. The treatment group will be treated with a combination of 4 different CAM modalities (Homeopathy, Osteopathy, and Acupuncture & Reflexology) . The control group will be treated with Homeopathic placebo medication. The main Outcome measurement in the study will be the Quality of recovery 40 questionnaire (QoR- 40) that will be filled out on postoperative days: 3, 5, and 7 respectively. Secondary outcome measurements will be Blood &Saliva Cortisol levels, DHES levels in the blood as surrogates of stress, IL-2 levels as measures of the immune system. Further parameters to be measured include: LOS (length of stay), Level of Pain, mobility, level of satisfaction, GI symptoms (nausea, first bowel movement), post-operative complications& side effects. All patients participating in the trial will sign an informed consent form . The trial is expected to be conducted over a period of 12 months. Prior to the trial a pilot study will be conducted on a group of 30 patients in order to determine the needed sample size for the trial.