Development and validation of a simulator for teaching minimally invasive thoracic surgery in Brazil.

Purpose: To develop and validate a chest cavity simulator for teaching video-assited thoracic surgery (VATS).

Methods: The first phase of the study consisted of developing a chest cavity simulator. A quasi-experimental study was performed in the second phase, and 25 surgeons and residents participated in a three-stage pulmonary suture experiment.

A prospective controlled randomized multicenter study to evaluate the severity of compensatory sweating after one-stage bilateral thoracic sympathectomy versus unilateral thoracic sympathectomy in the dominant side.

Objective: To evaluate the contribution that unilateral thoracic sympathectomy in dominant side or two-stage bilateral thoracic sympathectomy can have as strategies to reduce the incidence of compensatory sweating after sympathectomy for palmar hyperhidrosis.

Methods: This is a prospective, controlled, randomized multicenter trial of 200 participants with palmar hyperhidrosis, which will be randomized into two arms: (a) one-stage bilateral thoracic sympathectomy (control arm); or (b) unilateral thoracic sympathectomy in dominant side (intervention arm). At six months the participants submitted to unilateral procedure can make the contralateral surgery if they wanted it, creating a third group called two-stage bilateral sympathectomy.

Anatomic pulmonary resection by video-assisted thoracoscopy: the Brazilian experience (VATS Brazil study).

Objective: The objective of this study was to describe the results of anatomic pulmonary resections performed by video-assisted thoracoscopy in Brazil.

Methods: Thoracic surgeons (members of the Brazilian Society of Thoracic Surgery) were invited, via e-mail, to participate in the study. Eighteen surgeons participated in the project by providing us with retrospective databases containing information related to anatomic pulmonary resections performed by video-assisted thoracoscopy.