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VATS has good results for lung cancer surgery

Respiratory Care Weekly, February 15, 2006

Minimally invasive lung-cancer surgery lobectomy techniques can be as effective as traditional open methods, according to a 1,100-patient study in the February 2006 Annals of Thoracic Surgery. Positive side effects of the less invasive surgery include low complication risks and high survival rates, the study said.

Instead of making an eight- to 10-inch incision as is done in open surgery, video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) requires four small incisions through which instruments and a thoracoscope are placed.<p>A camera lens at the tip of the scope feeds high-resolution images to a video monitor, providing the surgeon with a detailed, magnified view of the surgical site. A segment, lobe, or entire lung can be removed with this method, depending on the patient's condition and the extent of the cancer. VATS accounts for about 5% of the 40,000 lobectomies performed each year in the United States.

"About 20% of our patients go home from the hospital on either the first or second day following lobectomy for lung cancer," says thoracic surgeon Robert McKenna Jr., MD, surgical director of the Center for Chest Diseases and medical director of Thoracic Surgery and Trauma at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles and principal investigator and senior author of the study. "VATS tremendously shifts the recovery rate and reduces the pain compared to the standard operation."

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