The Annals of thoracic surgery
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Review Case Reports
Multiple calcifying fibrous pseudotumors disseminated in the pleura.
Calcifying fibrous pseudotumor is an extremely rare benign lesion that develops in the pleura. We describe a case of multiple lesions in the pleura. The patient is a 52-year-old woman who had a subpleural mass on chest roentgenogram. ⋯ The largest tumor was hanging down from the parietal pleura, and additional small nodules were disseminated throughout the pleural cavity. Only a few tumors arising from the largest one were resected, and the others were left unresected. The resected tumors consisted of collagenous fibrous tissue, calcifications, and spindle cells that were positive only for vimentin immunostaining.
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Thoracoscopic lobectomy is performed with increasing frequency for early-stage lung cancer. Several published reports suggest thoracoscopic resection is safe, with the potential advantage of shorter hospital stay, quicker recovery, and comparable oncologic results. ⋯ Thoracoscopic lung resection can be performed safely in selected patients aged 80 years and older, in those with marginal pulmonary function, and in those with pathologic response to neoadjuvant therapy.
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Video-assisted thoracic surgery lobectomy has controversial advantages over traditional open surgical approaches. Subjective concerns such as pain, dyspnea, physical functioning, and overall satisfaction generally favor VATS but vary depending on survey timing. ⋯ Video-assisted thoracic surgery often hastens return to work and facilitates adjuvant chemotherapy or subsequent urgent surgical procedures. Video-assisted thoracic surgery-related quality of life benefits are amplified by advanced age (or other frailties) and reduced by advanced cancer stage or comorbid illness.
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The treatment of locally advanced thymic tumors is not uniform. Recently, several centers have reported the results of induction chemotherapy followed by resection and then radiation. Our center adopted an alternative strategy and treated locally advanced thymic tumors with induction chemoradiotherapy in an effort to maximize the intensity of the induction therapy. ⋯ Induction therapy for locally advanced thymic tumors with cisplatin, etoposide, and radiation is well tolerated, with many patients having a partial radiographic response. The majority of patients can undergo a complete resection with this treatment. The survival of these patients compares favorably with those undergoing other induction regimens. Further efforts to maximize the intensity of induction therapy for locally advanced thymic tumors is warranted. We have initiated a multicenter phase 2 clinical trial (NCT00387868) to prospectively test this concept.
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Review Comparative Study
Video-assisted thoracic surgery lobectomy (VATS), open thoracotomy, and the robot for lung cancer.
Video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) lobectomy provides a minimally invasive approach for the management of early-stage lung cancer. Questions about the safety of VATS lobectomy and its adequacy as a cancer operation compared with open thoracotomy have hindered its universal acceptance among thoracic surgeons. Evidence suggests that VATS lobectomy can be safely performed and is an adequate cancer operation for early-stage non-small cell lung cancer. However, adequately powered well-balanced studies comparing VATS with open thoracotomy for lobectomy are lacking in the literature.