Fire during thoracic surgery

A 67-year-old male with bilateral lung lesions presented for median sternot omy. One-lung ventilation was complicated by arterial desaturation. Continu ous positive airway pressure with oxygen was applied to the non-ventilated lung to relieve the hypoxaemia. However; the cotton gauze packed inside the operative site was ignited by the electrocautery. The burning gauze was im mediately removed without any complication. We report case of electrocautery-induced fire during thoracic surgery done in supine position and discuss its implication on the choice of oxygen enri chment therapy during one-lung ventilation.