The role of lymphadenectomy in lung cancer surgery

Adequate lymphadenectomy represents a fundamental procedure in lung cancer surgery for accurate staging and potential survival benefit. Various techniques are used in current surgical practice for the intraoperative lymph node removal associated with pulmonary resection, without definitive indications concerning the preferable option. Different studies in the last decades have compared complete mediastinal lymph node dissection with lymph node sampling regarding their effect on long-term survival, recurrence rate, accuracy of pathologic staging, and surgical morbidity. Literature data and technical aspects of lymph node dissection are reported and discussed in this article.