Chest drainage systems, indispensable components in postoperative care for cardiothoracic surgeries, enable the removal of fluid and air from the pleural cavity, thereby facilitating lung expansion and reestablishing negative pressure within the thoracic cavity. Unlike other drainage tubes, chest tubes serve the dual purpose of draining fluid and restoring appropriate air pressure to the lungs, which is essential for maintaining normal respiration. The inception of chest tubes can be traced back to the 1700s, when they were utilized to evacuate extravasated blood from the pleural cavity in cases of traumatic hemothorax via open drainage. In 1875, Gotthard Bülau pioneered the use of closed water-sealed chest drainage as an empyema treatment modality. Subsequently, one-bottle, two-bottle, and three-bottle systems were devised to optimize drainage efficacy. These unwieldy systems were ultimately supplanted by disposable three-compartment systems. In 1967, Deknatel presented the integrated disposable chest drainage system, predicated upon the three-bottle model. Conventional chest drainage systems encountered limitations in facilitating patient mobilization and accurately quantifying air leakage from the pleural cavity. The advent of the first portable drainage system in 2007, equipped with suction and digital information capabilities, marked a significant improvement in patient mobility and data precision throughout the healing trajectory.