New surgery for lung cancer, less invasive

It’s often tough recovering from lung cancer surgery, because of the extent of the surgery. The incisions are large and the surgeon needs to cut through muscles to reach the ribs, which must be spread apart in order to reach the lungs. All this needs a good amount of time to heal.

Other surgeries that can be quite major have been improved upon by endoscopic surgeries. This type of surgery requires very small incisions and long instruments, with a camera on the end of one, to do the surgery. The surgeon’s hands never go inside. This cuts down on recovery time considerably. For example, gall bladder surgery used to set people back for six weeks or more done the old way. Done endoscopically, recovery is only a couple of weeks, at the most.

Lung surgery is more complicated because of the location of the lungs, but researchers have developed a new minimally-invasive lung surgery, called video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS). This surgery is performed with 2 to 4 small incisions, no larger than 2 inches. The surgeons can do the same procedures as with the open surgery.

After lung surgery, patients have a chest tube that allows drainage from the chest. In a study, researchers found that patients who had VATS were able to have their chest tubes removed after only 4 days, while those who had the usual surgery had the tubes removed after 5 days. The complication rate was also lower among VATS patients at 35% compared with 42% among patients who had the regular surgery.

The surgery is limited to some academic medical centers right now, but as surgeons become more familiar with the techniques, hopefully the surgery will become more available all over the continent.

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Tags: cancer blog, lung cancer, lung cancer surgery