Bilateral thoracoscopic lower sympathetic-splanchnicectomy for upper abdominal cancer pain

Upper abdominal pain secondary to cancer may cause great disability to patients. Surgical sympathetic-splanchnicectomy, or coeliac plexus block, has been used to relieve intractable upper abdominal cancer pain from stomach, liver, gallbladder or pancreas for a long time. There are, however, intrinsic disadvantages when performing these procedures. Due to our long experience of therapeutic thoracoscopy, we recently performed bilateral thoracoscopic sympathetic-splanchnicectomy on 14 patients (eight male and six female) for relief of pain from primary or metastatic upper abdominal cancers. Most of them were satisfied with the immediate pain relief after the operation. In this new era of therapeutic endoscopy, endoscopic surgery will gradually take the place of open methods in treatment of many diseases. It can be anticipated that thoracoscopic lower sympathetic-splanchnicectomy is undoubtedly a good alternative method for management of intractable upper abdominal pain.