Is There a Pediatric Role for the General Thoracic Surgeon in a General Hospital? A 22-Year Single-Center Experience.

: Although general thoracic surgery is usually focused on adult patients, there are some settings of pediatric diseases which can benefit from thoracic surgical procedures. In this study, we retrospectively reviewed the contribution of general thoracic surgeons to pediatric patients in a high-volume hospital. : From September 2002 to August 2024, 8897 consecutive patients were operated on; among them, 202 patients (2.

Malignant Pleural Effusion: Diagnosis and Treatment-Up-to-Date Perspective.

Malignant pleural effusion is the presence of malignant cells within the pleural fluid, representing the second most common cause of pleural exudate. Although diagnostic methods and management techniques for malignant pleural effusion have dramatically improved over the decades, the current treatment is still palliative, aiming to remove pleural fluid, possibly prevent its recurrence, and alleviate symptoms through a wide range of available procedures. Treatment should be tailored to the individual patient, considering comorbidities, size of the effusion, rate of fluid accumulation, underlying cardiac or respiratory conditions, rate of recurrence, presence of loculations or trapped lung, tumor characteristics, cancer type, and patient preferences.

Evaluation of preoperative cardiopulmonary reserve and surgical risk of patients undergoing lung cancer resection.

Lung cancer represents the second most frequent neoplasm and the leading cause of neoplastic death among both women and men, causing almost 25% of all cancer deaths. Patients undergoing lung resection-both for primary and secondary tumors-require careful preoperative cardiopulmonary functional evaluation to confirm the safety of the planned resection, to assess the maximum tolerable volume of resection or to exclude surgery, thus shifting the therapeutic approach toward less invasive options. Cardiopulmonary reserve, pulmonary lung function and mechanical respiratory function represent the cornerstones of preoperative assessment of patients undergoing major lung resection.

The Role of Sublobar Resection in Early-Stage Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer.

The results of a prospective, multi-institutional randomized trial developed to assess the equality of sublobar resection versus standard lobectomy were first published in 1995. They concluded that, compared with lobectomy, sublobar resections did not show any significant improvement either in terms of postoperative morbidity and mortality nor in terms of late post-resectional cardiorespiratory function. Moreover, due to the higher mortality and local recurrence rate related to sublobar resection, lobectomy had to be judged as the best surgical option for patients diagnosed with peripheral early-stage non-small-cell lung cancer.