• Hiroyuki Shiono, Yoshihisa Kadota, Akio Hayashi, and Meinoshin Okumura.
• General Thoracic Surgery, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Yamadaoka, Suita-City, Osaka, Japan. hshiono@nara.med.kindai.ac.jp
• Surg Laparosc Endosc Percutan Tech. 2009 Dec 1; 19 (6): 424-7.

AbstractMinimally invasive thymectomy procedures have been proposed for nonthymomatous myasthenia gravis. However, few reports stressed that the lower invasiveness or cosmetic benefits also evaluated the rationale of a thymectomy, which is performed to remove as much thymic tissue as possible. We retrospectively reviewed 30 consecutive patients who underwent a bilateral video-assisted thoracoscopic extended thymectomy (VATET) and compared the results with those of 26 patients who underwent a transsternal extended thymectomy (TSET) to determine the amount of removed thymic tissue and clinical prognosis. The amount of blood loss during the operation for VATET (median 60 mL; range nearly 0 to 940 mL) was significantly lower as compared with that of TSET. The median weight of removed thymic tissue (37.0 g; 18.3 to 100.0 g) and remission rates (1 y: 12.5%; 3 y: 30.8%; 4 y: 44.4%) of VATET were comparable with those of TSET. The VATET group had a similar amount of thymo-fatty tissue removed and feasible clinical outcomes as compared with the TSET group, indicating that VATET provides a proper balance between less invasiveness and radical capability.

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