Between 70 and 90 percent of patients with pancreatic cancer will present with jaundice, and 90% will have pain at some stage of their illness. Resection for cure is possible in less than 5% of patients, thus a palliative approach is of necessity the appropriate management in 95% of patients. A palliative approach demands an attitude of mind which objectively defines relief of symptoms as the e...

Anatomical variation of the thoracic splanchnic nerves is as diverse as any structure in the body. Thoracic splanchnic nerves are derived from medial branches of the lower seven thoracic sympathetic ganglia, with the greater splanchnic nerve comprising the more cranial contributions, the lesser the middle branches, and the least splanchnic nerve usually T11 and/or T12. Much of the early anatomi...

BACKGROUND Thoracoscopic surgery has become very popular in recent years. Conventional thoracoscopic surgery requires three or more port wounds for manipulations of endoscopic instruments. For complicated cancer surgery, more port wounds and a larger thoracotomy wound may be required due to technical reasons. We want to investigate the effectiveness of single-port thoracoscopic approach in elec...

INTRODUCTION Single-port thoracoscopic surgery has widened the current minimally invasive surgical techniques toward more less invasive procedures in terms of reducing the number of incisions. However, the current status of oncologic outcome with this technique is not well known for lung cancer surgery. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the oncologic outcomes in early stage lung cancer f...

BACKGROUND Video assisted thoracoscopic resection of an esophageal leiomyoma offers distinct advantages over an open approach. Many papers have described various techniques of thoracoscopic resection. CASE PRESENTATION We describe a 32-year old man who presented with intermittent dysphagia. Imaging studies showed a large esophageal leiomyoma. He underwent thoracoscopic enucleation using a thr...

Increasingly, evidence suggests that thoracoscopic lobectomy can be performed with similar, if not reduced, morbidity and equivalent oncologic outcomes when compared with open lobectomy [1-5]. Despite the potential advantages of minimally invasive surgery, only 20% of pulmonary resections are currently completed in the United States using the thoracoscopic technique [6]. There are still several...

Background The management of empyema is still debated. Videoassisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) has revolutionized surgical management of patients with empyema. Currently thoracoscopic approach probably is the best choice in the management of second or third stage of empyema, particularly in those patients with chronic empyema and poor performance status. Multioculated empyemas generally make...

conclusions thoracoscopic sympathicotomy shows proper results in treatment of phh. thoracoscopic r3-r5 sympathicotomy compared with r2-r4 sympathicotomy is a preferable method, because of similar results and fewer complications. objectives this study was planned to evaluate and compare complications and patients’ satisfaction of thoracoscopic sympathicotomy in levels of r2-r4 versus r3-r5 for p...

BACKGROUND Video assisted thoracoscopic lung biopsies were compared with historical controls undergoing open lung biopsy to determine the diagnostic accuracy, effect on length of postoperative stay, and cost effectiveness of the new thoracoscopic technique. METHODS The first 25 video assisted thoracoscopic lung biopsies performed in the Edinburgh Thoracic Unit were compared with 25 historical...