Analysis of the Results of Pulmonary Resection by Minimally Invasive Thoracoscopy for the Surgical Treatment of Lung Cancer

Introduction: Lung cancer is the disease of modern era, and the rate of lung cancer mortality is three times as high as that for prostate cancer and twice as high as the rate for breast cancer. We aimed to analyze the results of pulmonary resection in patients with NSCLC by minimally invasive thoracoscopy.  Materials and Methods: We studied 10 patients with NSCLC scheduled for surgical resection by minimally invasive video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) in Ghaem Hospital, Mashhad, Iran, during March, 2015-February 2016. The patients were analyzed with respect to age, gender, pathology, surgery type, surgical complications and turning into open surgery, hospital-acquired complications, and mortality rate six months and one year post-operation.   Results: We found that 60% of the patients were male. The patients were within the age range of 47-75 years. The analysis of lesion location showed that most lesions were in the lower lobe of the left lung (50%). None of the VATSs turned into open thoracotomy surgeries. Postoperative complications were observed in 3 (30%) patients. Further,  5 (50%) patients had squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), 4 (40%) of the patients had adenocarcinoma, and 1 (10%) had LCC. The surgical mortality analysis of the patients showed that only one male patient (a 72-year-old patient) died five days after wedge resection due to myocardial infarction. In the six-months and one-year follow up of the nine remaining patients, no cases of death had occurred.  Conclusion: It seems that pulmonary resection by minimally invasive VATS has considerable advantages compared to open surgery, including higher effectiveness, shorter intensive care unit (ICU) stay, higher survival rate, and greater patient satisfaction.