Updates Surg
November 2024
Recently targeted therapy and immunotherapy have been demonstrated to improve survival in non-operable, non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. The results of salvage lung resection in patients with initially unresectable advanced NSCLC after immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) or Target Therapy (TT) treatment remain limited and unclear. We aimed to define the outcomes of patients undergoing salvage surgery in a real-life setting.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDespite the implementation of enhanced recovery programs, the reported average postoperative length of stay after robotic lobectomy remains as 4 days. In this prospective study, we present the outcomes of early discharge (on day 2) with telehealth home monitoring device after robotic lobectomy for lung cancer in selected patients. All patients with a caregiver were discharged on postoperative day 2 (POD 2) with a telemonitoring device provided they met the specific discharge criteria.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF: The aim of this paper is to describe our experience in the embolization of hypervascular giant thoracic tumors before surgical excision. : A single-center retrospective review of five trans-arterial preoperative embolization procedures executed between October 2020 and July 2024. Patients' demographics, anatomical aspects, feasibility, technique, and outcomes were reviewed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Analysis of breath, specifically the patterns of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), has shown the potential to distinguish between patients with lung cancer (LC) and healthy individuals (HC). However, the current technology relies on complex, expensive and low throughput analytical platforms, which provide an offline response, making it unsuitable for mass screening. A new portable device has been developed to enable fast and on-site LC diagnosis, and its reliability is being tested.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Objective: Primary and secondary chest wall tumors (bone, breast, and soft tissue), congenital defects, and chest wall osteoradionecrosis often require extensive full-thickness local excisions to guarantee safe oncological margins (in cases of tumors) and complex reconstruction to provide stabilization and good biomechanical results avoiding postoperative respiratory failure. Thus, a personalized approach is required when dealing with chest wall defects, and reconstruction is planned. This review summarizes failed chest wall reconstruction procedures, identifies causes of failure, and highlights principles for complex chest wall reconstruction post-failure.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFContext.—: Mesothelioma subtyping into epithelioid and nonepithelioid categories plays a crucial role in prognosis and treatment selection, with emerging recognition of the impact of various histologic patterns.
Objective.
Different factors, not limited to the lung, influence the progression of ILDs. A "treatable trait" strategy was recently proposed for ILD patients as a precision model of care to improve outcomes. However, no data have been published so far on the prevalence of TTs in ILD.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNuclear protein of the testis carcinoma is an exceedingly rare and poorly differentiated carcinoma characterized by BDR4::NUTM1 gene translocation. Typically, the tumor affects young adults, and no standardized recommendations for therapeutic management have been available since 2022; the clinical course remains mostly dismal. We report the successful multimodal treatment of a 13-year-old boy affected by a primary chest NUT-carcinoma with a novel NUTM1 rearrangement that remains in complete continuous remission at 30 months from diagnosis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThymic epithelial tumors (TETs) are rare mediastinal cancers originating from the thymus, classified in two main histotypes: thymoma and thymic carcinoma (TC). TETs affect a primary lymphoid organ playing a critical role in keeping T-cell homeostasis and ensuring an adequate immunological tolerance against "self". In particular, thymomas and not TC are frequently associated with autoimmune diseases (ADs), with Myasthenia Gravis being the most common AD present in 30% of patients with thymoma.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: To assess the current practice of pulmonary metastasectomy at 15 European Centres. Short- and long-term outcomes were analysed.
Methods: Retrospective analysis on patients ≥18 years who underwent curative-intent pulmonary metastasectomy (January 2010 to December 2018).
Video assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) lobectomy is the treatment of choice for early-stage lung cancer. It is safe and effective compared to open surgery, as demonstrated by a large body of scientific evidence over the last few decades. VATS lobectomy's evolution was driven by the need to decrease post-operative pain by reducing the extent of surgical accesses, maintaining the same oncological efficacy of open lobectomy with less invasiveness.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCancers (Basel)
January 2024
Thymectomy is the gold standard in the treatment of thymic neoplasm and plays a key role in the therapeutic path of myasthenia gravis. For years, sternotomy has been the traditional approach for removing anterior mediastinal lesions, although the robotic thymectomy is now widely performed. The literature is still lacking in papers comparing the two approaches and evaluating long-term oncological and neurological outcomes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Clin Med
September 2023
Background: The identification of small lung nodules is challenging during mini-invasive thoracic surgery. Unable to palpate them directly, surgeons have developed several methods to preoperatively localize pulmonary nodules, including the computed tomography-guided positioning of coils or metallic landmarks (hook wire) or bronchoscopic marking.
Methods: We present a series of patients scheduled for the video-assisted thoracoscopic sublobar resection of small pulmonary nodules, in which we performed preoperative percutaneous computed tomography (CT)-guided nodule localization through the injection of a mixture of indocyanine green and human albumin.
Cannabis can be related to respiratory diseases, but the relationship between smoking marijuana and the development of a pneumothorax has scarcely been investigated. We aimed to analyze, in patients with a history of cannabis smoking abuse submitted to lung apicectomy for a primary spontaneous pneumothorax (PSP), the correlation between the presence of cannabinoids in the resected lung and the detection of bullous emphysema within the same tissue. Patients undergoing lung apicectomy for a PSP were prospectively enrolled, and the correlation between the presence of cannabinoids in the resected lung tissue and histological finding of bullous emphysema was investigated with Fisher's exact test.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Total thymectomy in addition to medical treatment is an accepted standard therapy for myasthenia gravis (MG). Patients with severe generalized MG present life-threatening events, poor prognosis and higher risk of postoperative myasthenic crisis. The aim of our study is to investigate neurological and surgical results in patients with Myasthenia Gravis Foundation of America (MGFA) class IV and V MG following thymectomy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Catamenial pneumothorax (CP) is a rare type of spontaneous, recurring pneumothorax occurring in women, from the day before menstruation until 72 hours after its beginning. Conservative treatment is generally associated with recurrence of CP. Video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) approach allows not only to obtain diagnosis but also to guide definitive treatment of causing lesions, such as ectopic endometrial implants or diaphragmatic defects and fenestrations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: An increasing number of patients have been subjected to prolonged invasive mechanical ventilation due to COVID-19 infection, leading to a significant number of post-intubation/tracheostomy (PI/T) upper airways lesions. The purpose of this study is to report our early experience in endoscopic and/or surgical management of PI/T upper airways injuries of patients surviving COVID-19 critical illness.
Materials And Methods: We prospectively collected data from patients referred to our Thoracic Surgery Unit from March 2020 to February 2022.
Introduction: With the spread of the use of implantable loop recorders (ILRs) by cardiologists for outpatient cardiac monitoring, intrathoracic migration represents a rare but possible complication occurring after the placement of these devices. Very few cases of ILRs intrathoracic migration into the pleural cavity have been reported, followed in even fewer cases by surgical removal of the devices, but in none re-implantation was performed.
Presentation Of Case: We report the first case of a patient with a new generation ILR accidentally migrated into the postero-inferior costophrenic recess of the left pleural cavity, successfully removed by uniportal video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) and submitted to re-implantation of a new ILR in the same operating session.
Background: Air leak is the major factor that influences the permanence of the chest tube and the in-hospital length of stay (LOS) among patients undergoing lung resections. The aim of this study was to determine whether the use of digital chest drain systems, compared with traditional ones, reduced the duration of chest drainage and postoperative in-hospital LOS in patients undergoing video-assisted thoracoscopic (VATS) lobectomy.
Methods: The study was a prospective, randomized, multicenter trial.
Background: Persistent air leak and the management of intraoperative blood loss are common threats in thoracic surgical practice. The availability of new procedures, technology and materials is constantly evolving topical hemostats and surgical sealants must be added to this toolkit. Topical hemostats and surgical sealants differ according to their chemical nature and physical characteristics, to their origin and mechanism of action, regulatory/registration and vigilance paths.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCurr Treat Options Oncol
December 2022
Primary neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) of the lung represent a heterogeneous group of malignancies arising from the endocrine cells, involving different entities, from well differentiated to highly undifferentiated neoplasms. Because of the predominance of poorly differentiated tumors, advanced disease is observed at diagnosis in more than one third of patients making chemo- or chemoradiotherapy the only possible treatment. Complete surgical resection, as defined as anatomical resection plus systematic lymphadenectomy, becomes a reliable curative option only for that little percentage of patients presenting with stage I (N0) high-grade NETs.
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