Chenlu Yang

Subxiphoid pneumonectomy: the new frontier?

Over the last decade there has been a significant drive towards minimally invasive thoracic surgery. The reported benefits of video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) over open surgery include reduced postoperative pain, reduced postoperative complications, reduced length of hospital-stay and period of recovery to normal function (1-4). With increased experience, more advanced procedures are now reportedly performed by VATS in high volume centres, including sleeve and carinal resections (5,6).

Intra-pericardial double sleeve uniportal video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery left upper lobectomy

The importance of parenchymal tissue preservation during lung resections is well realized in thoracic surgery. Technical refinement and anatomic insight have expanded indications for parenchymal -sparing surgeries. In thoracic surgery, it’s reasonable to avoid pneumonectomy whenever it’s possible, although challenging and technically more demanding than standard anatomic pulmonary resection, bronchial and/or vascular resection of a circumferential portion (sleeve resections) is a justified procedure due to its benefits of avoiding the complications of pneumonectomy in addition to preservation of pulmonary tissue and functions. In The era of video assisted thoracoscopic surgery’s revolution and with the improvement of the surgical instruments and surgeon’s experience, reports on multiportal and uniportal sleeve and double sleeve resections published recently in the literature. Here we present a video documented case of the Intra-pericardial double sleeve left upper lobectomy that demonstrates our technique in performing this surgery via uniportal approach.

Unusual case of subxiphoid uniportal VATS right upper lobectomy in a patient with interrupted inferior vena cava with azygous continuation

Interrupted IVC (also known as Azygos continuation of the inferior vena cava) is a relatively uncommon congenital condition with prevalence 1.5% (0.2-3%) of the general population (Bass et al.). Although its usually asymptomatic condition, splenic or cardiac abnormalities could be associated (Hardwick et al.). Incidental diagnosis during prenatal ultrasound screening or by routine imaging is the most common scenario. Special attention is required during right side thoracic procedures surgical resections in order to avoid scarifying the azygos vein that could lead to fatal results (Effler et al.). We herein report a video documented case of right upper lobectomy and mediastinal lymph node dissection for non-small cell carcinoma of lung in a patient who had interrupted hepatic segmental branch of the IVC. The procedure was performed via the subxiphoid uniportal VATS approach.