Video-assisted thoracic surgery major pulmonary resections. Present experience

The purpose of this report is to review our experience of video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) major pulmonary resections.

From January 1993 to December 1999 we proposed VATS, for major pulmonary resections, with these indications: benign lesions and solitary metastases not removable by wedge resection and stage I non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The maximum size of the lesion had to be less than 4 cm.

There were 125 patients, 87 men and 38 women with a mean age of 62. We successfully performed VATS procedure in 112 cases (one hamartoma, one tubercoloma, 12 typical carcinoids, 11 metastases and 87 lung cancers), while in another 13 (10.4%) a conversion to open surgery was required. There were 108 lobectomies, three bilobectomies and one pneumonectomy. Out of the first three cases of NSCLC, in all patients mediastinal node sampling or lymphadenectomy was performed. We recorded 13 (11.6%) postoperative complications, one of which required re-operation (bleeding). In the 99 patients without complications, the mean postoperative stay was 5.8 days. In a mean follow-up period of 36 months with patients having lung cancer we achieved a 3-year survival rate of 85+/-9 and 90+/-8% when only the patients in Stage I were considered.

We believe that VATS, in performing pulmonary lobectomy, is a safe and effective approach and it seems to give the same long-term results as open surgery. Now the main problems concern the indications that should be strictly respected and the conversion to thoracotomy which should be undertaken without hesitation when the anatomic or pathologic conditions are not favourable.