Chul Burm Lee

Polyostotic rib fibrous dysplasia resected by video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery with preservation of the overlying periosteum.

Video-assisted thoracoscopic rib resection has rarely been reported, but a relatively simple procedure that uses readily available instruments can prove to be feasible. A conventional approach would involve an incision greater than the length of the mass itself. Such an approach would require significant resection of the chest wall musculature and could lead to significant postoperative morbidity and decrease in quality of life. Multiple rib tumors would require an even more extensive incision and may require multiple incisions to facilitate exposure and removal. We report the removal of 2 expansile bone tumors by video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery while preserving the periosteum to allow for bone formation. To the best of our knowledge, no such attempts

Rib xanthoma resected by video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery using a bone punch.

Xanthomas of the rib are extremely rare benign neoplasms, most commonly reported in soft tissue, but rarely in bone. We report a case of a 4-cm xanthoma of the rib resected by video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery and pulled through a 2-cm port incision around the patients areola. To the best of our knowledge, there are only 8 other such cases, and none of which were removed by thoracoscopic surgery.