Uniportal video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery for lung neoplasms with tracheal bronchus: a case report

A 63-year-old woman came to our department complaint that an abnormal shadow was identified by chest computed tomography (CT). CT revealed a 21 mm × 18 mm solid nodule in the right upper lobe of lung, which was suspected to be lung cancer. We also found a bronchus directly arising from the trachea and running into the right upper lobe, which appeared to be tracheal bronchus (TB). Then she underwent the right upper lobectomy and mediastinal lymph node dissection using uniportal video-assisted thoracic surgery. During the surgery we found two bronchi which were posterior to the pulmonary hilum running into the right upper lobe. And one of them directly branched from the trachea and was thus confirmed to be TB. TB, which may be related to repeated lung infections, is a rare anomaly. The patient underwent surgery and the pathological diagnosis was lung invasive adenocarcinoma, pT1cN0M0 (stage IA3). Then the patient is being followed up outpatient. By doing chest CT before surgery, uniportal video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) is safe for lung neoplasms with TB. To our knowledge, this is the first case report of uniportal VATS right upper lobectomy for lung neoplasms with TB.