Multidisciplinary approach to a septic COVID-19 patient undergoing veno-venous extracorporeal membrane oxygenation and receiving thoracic surgery.

A multidisciplinary approach appears to be fundamental for the treatment of critically ill patients with COVID-19, improving clinical outcomes, even in the most severe cases. Such severe cases are advisable to be collegially discussed between intensivists, surgeons, infectious disease, and other physicians potentially involved.

Management of intrathoracic benign schwannomas of the brachial plexus.

Primary tumours of the brachial plexus are rare entities. They usually present as extrathoracic masses located in the supraclavicular region. This report describes two cases of benign schwannomas arising from the brachial plexus with an intrathoracic growth.

Unusual presentation of mediastinal neurogenic tumours.

Mediastinal neurogenic tumours generally arise as single benign lesions and their typical location is the costovertebral sulcus. In about 10% of cases mediastinal neurogenic tumours may extend to the spinal canal; occasionally they may extend to the cervical region and, more rarely, may be multiple or associated with other synchronous mediastinal lesions. The treatment of choice is surgical resection.

Montgomery T-tube placement in the treatment of benign tracheal lesions.

Introduction: Although surgery remains the gold standard for the treatment of benign tracheal stenosis, airway stenting may be indicated in the event of complex lesions or associated diseases. We retrospectively investigated Montgomery T-tube placement as an alternative or complementary treatment to surgery.

Methods: From January 1984 to March 2008, 158 patients were treated for benign tracheal lesions.

Results of surgical treatment after neoadjuvant chemotherapy for stage III non-small cell lung cancer.

Background: The potential benefits of an approach combining neoadjuvant chemotherapy and surgery in stage IIIA and IIIB NSCLC have to be weighed against a potential increase in postoperative complications. We evaluated the results in terms of postoperative complications and survival in patients with stage III NSCLC who underwent complete surgical treatment after neoadjuvant chemotherapy with two regimens: mitomycin, vinblastine, and cisplatin (MPV) versus gemcitabine and cisplatin (GC).

Methods: From March 1991 to September 2005, 110 patients with stage III NSCLC (86 stage IIIA and 24 stage IIIB) underwent complete surgical treatment after neoadjuvant chemotherapy.

Acupuncture for diagnostic fiberoptic bronchoscopy: a prospective, randomized, placebo-controlled study.

Patients usually fear fiberoptic bronchoscopy (FBS) and they report a low level of satisfaction after this examination. We evaluated the efficacy of acupuncture in decreasing patient anxiety before diagnostic FBS and in improving tolerance to the examination. In a prospective double-blind study, we enrolled 48 patients scheduled to undergo diagnostic FBS.

Endobronchial migration of prosthetic patch after congenital diaphragmatic hernia repair.

Surgical repair of congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH) can be performed by means of either direct suturing of the diaphragm or positioning of a prosthetic patch. However, half of all prosthetic patches show evidence of reherniation. We describe the case of an 8-year-old girl who presented with prosthesis dislocation and fistulization in the right lower bronchus as a complication of a CDH repair that she underwent when she was 1 year old.

Video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery for pulmonary nodules: rationale for preoperative computed tomography-guided hookwire localization.

Objectives: Video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) provides a minimally invasive means to resect pulmonary nodules (PN). Deep localization of PN may jeopardize VATS lung resection. The aim of this study was to establish the utility of preoperative computed tomography (CT)-guided hookwire localization of PN.