Video-assisted Thoracic Surgery (VATS) for Lung Cancer

From September 1992 to April 1999, 165 video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) lobectomies were performed at Saiseikai Kanagawa-ken Hospital. The lesions consisted of 130 cases of lung cancer, 12 cases of bronchiectasis, 8 cases of granuloma, 5 cases of metastatic tumors, and 10 cases with other miscellaneous diseases. Among the 130 cases with lung cancer, 94, who were diagnosed as stage I clinically, underwent a VATS lobectomy with extended lymph node dissection. The 5-year survival rate of these final stage I lung cancers following VATS was 96.6%. This survival rate is significantly better than that for open thoracotomy (78.5%: p<0.001). We conclude that VATS lobectomy with extended lymph node dissection can become a new standard procedure for clinical stage I lung cancer to replace open thoracotomy.