Minimally invasive thoracic surgery: new trends in Italy

In Italy there exists quite a long and rich history in minimally invasive thoracic surgery. Pioneer Italian surgeons have been amongst those who first adopted video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) to perform procedures such as lobectomy and esophagectomy, respectively and quite many others have provided important contributions related to minimally invasive thoracic surgery and have proposed innovative ideas and creative technical refinements. According to a web search on recent studies published in Italy on minimally invasive thoracic surgery along the last 3 years, uniportal, nonintubated, and robotic VATS as well as VATS lobectomy have been found to represent the most frequently investigated issues. An ongoing active investigation in each of these sub-topics is contributing to a better definition of indications advantages and disadvantages of the various surgical strategies. In addition it is likely that combination strategies including adoption of uniportal and nonintubated approaches will lead to define novel ultra-minimally invasive treatment options.