A 32-year-old female was diagnosed with a giant mediastinal mass extending to the retroperitoneal space (Fig. 1A and B). Histological examination showed a malignant neuroendocrine tumour, G3. Induction chemotherapy was administered followed by the complete removal of the tumour via a left thoracophreno-laparatomy approach (Fig. 2A and B) with an uneventful outcome. Figure 1: Computed tomography...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the incidence, clinical data and patterns of mediastinal lymph node metastasis (pN2) in non-small-cell lung cancer patients who underwent systematic mediastinal lymph node dissection (SMLND). We retrospectively studied 140 consecutive patients [125 male and 15 female, mean ages 54.61 +/- 9.23 years (range, 21-75)], underwent SMLND and major lung resections ...

Mediastinal lymph node enlargement is common in the follow-up of patients with previously treated malignancies. The aim of this study is to assess the role of endobronchial ultrasound (EBUS) transbronchial needle aspiration (TBNA) for cyto-histological evaluation of positron emission tomography with 18fluorodeoxyglucose (PET) positive mediastinal and hilar lymph nodes developed in patients with...

OBJECTIVES The extension of non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) to supraclavicular (SC) and contralateral (CL) mediastinal lymph nodes is termed N3 and usually forbids surgical resection. However, scarce surgical series have reported encouraging results, and we sought to analyse our experience with this particular subgroup of patients. METHODS We retrospectively reviewed the charts of 5857 pat...

In 1958 a mediastinal tumour was discovered in an asymptomatic woman with a history of vomiting and an oesophageal anomaly which had not been treated. A tumour of the anterosuperior mediastinum in relation to the aortic arch was extirpated and proved to be a chemodectoma or non-chromaffin paraganglioma. At subsequent follow-ups the mediastinum was never normal and the heart size progressively i...

We present a 52-year-old gentleman with an unusual cause of progressive dysphagia, namely due to extrinsic lower oesophageal compression from a cystic mass of the posterior mediastinum. Cystic masses in adults are uncommon, and there is a wide differential diagnosis. This includes neoplastic, such as germ cell tumour (cystic teratoma), and non-neoplastic aetiologies. The later include foregut d...

STUDY OBJECTIVE We hypothesized that transoesophageal endoscopic ultrasound guided fine needle aspiration (EUS-FNA) has the potential to be a valuable and accurate new diagnostic technique for mediastinal restaging in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) after induction chemotherapy. The current restaging modalities either have a low diagnostic accuracy (computed tomography (CT) scan of the thora...

A patient developed severe exertional dyspnoea and stridor eight months after a right pneumonectomy for a carcinoid tumour, with a progressive loss of lung function. These events were the result of compression of the left main bronchus against the vertebral column by the mediastinal contents, which had shifted into the right hemithorax with the herniated lung.

Many differing views exist on the management of locally advanced lung carcinoma. One reason for this is that experience has shown that the most reliable method of determining the extent of the spread outside the lung is by thoracotomy. Having confirmed the extent of invasion by exploration, opinions vary on the subsequent steps in management, from immediate closure of the chest followed by radi...

Post-thoracotomy paraplegia after thoracic surgery is a catastrophic complication. We present one such case following resection of a benign posterior mediastinal tumour. Paraplegia was caused by spinal cord compression due to epidural migration of haemostatic agent i.e. bone wax through the spinal canal. Timely intervention leads to the successful outcome.