5 Things You Should Know about Minimally Invasive Approaches in Thoracic Surgery

In the last ten years, thoracic surgery has evolved into a less invasive approach ito perform safe and effective procedures with minimal trauma to the patient. Minimally invasive thoracic surgery has become the treatment of choice for thoracic tumors. 90% of resections in thoracic surgery are performed to remove a lung, mediastinal or pleural malignant tumor, so a minimally invasive approach must meet three conditions: being safe, being feasible, and making complete resection of the tumor possible. The development of specific minimally invasive thoracic surgery instruments and a higher experience of surgical teams in minimally invasive approaches has made it possible to perform tumor resection through a transcervical, transthoracic or subxiphoid approach. This makes it possible to perform the same resection than open surgery with less trauma to the patient.

In this presentation we describe different thoracic approaches depending on the location and number of the incisions and the instruments used.