ObjectiveTo discuss the clinical characteristics and the management of major complications after thoracic surgery.MethodsRetrospective research was conducted on 15 213 patients who underwent thoracic surgery from January 2008 to September 2018 in our hospital. Thirty-six (0.24%) patients died of postoperative complications. Based on whether major complications such as severe pulmonary pneumonia and other 13 complications were presented postoperatively, the patients were divided into a complication group (n=389, 294 males and 95 females, aged 61.93±10.23 years) and a non-complication group (n=14 785, 8 636 males and 6 149 females, aged 55.27±13.21 years) after exclusion of unqualified patients. The age, gender distribution, diagnosis, surgical approach, postoperative hospital stay, in-hospital costs and other clinical data were analyzed. And the treatment and outcomes of the complications were summarized.ResultsThe age, proportion of male, malignancy and esophageal diseases, postoperative hospital stay and in-hospital costs in the complication group were significantly more or higher than those in the non-complication group (P<0.05). The top three causes of death among the 36 deaths were pulmonary embolism (PE, 25.00%), severe pulmonary pneumonia (16.67%) and acute respiratory failure (16.67%), respectively. The top five complications among the severe complication group were pulmonary pneumonia (24.73%), pleural space (19.83%), anastomotic leak (17.48%), pulmonary atelectasis (11.51%) and PE (6.18%).ConclusionThoracic surgeons should recognize patients with high risk of severe complications preoperatively based on clinical characteristics and perform multi-disciplinary treatment for severe complications.