Statistical analysis
The objective was to determine the superiority of repairing lung lacerations, when compared with patients with no repair. A decrease of 20% in the duration of ventilator use (mean ± standard deviation (SD): 15 ± 5) and the length of hospital stay (mean ± SD: 15 ± 5) was assumed. Per group, 44 patients were needed to achieve a power of 80% to detect a difference between groups with a one-sided level of significance of 0.025. Simple means were used for frequency and percentages for the categorical variables, while SDs were used for the continuous variables. Categorical variables were compared by the χ2 test or Fisher's exact test, and numerical variables were compared by the t-test or the Wilcoxon rank-sum test. A value of P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Data analyses were performed using the SPSS software (Version 16; SPSS, Inc., Chicago, IL, USA).