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Surgical resection is recommended for the treatment of recurrent thymoma, provided that criteria for suitability for resection/operation are satisfactory at the time of diagnosis. Best survival outcomes are found to depend on the degree of completeness of the repeat resection.

The sensitivity of HCT exceeds that of HRCT. However, complete manual exploration by thoracotomy remains the procedure of choice for patients undergoing pulmonary metastasectomy, because of limitation in preoperative radiological assessment of lung lesions smaller than 6 mm.

Neoadjuvant radiochemotherapy is feasible with good pathological DS results. Pathological downstaging was confirmed to have high predictive value. Its use is suggested in the short-term evaluation of induction protocols efficacy in locally advanced NSCLC.

Based upon our experience, we believe that any case of diverticulum of the esophageal body deserves a complete physiopathological evaluation because an underlying functional disorder is associated in most cases. The evidence that the diverticulum per se can be considered as the ultimate phenomenon of an underlying functional disease determined the need for a tailored surgery, planning treatment of the functional disorder as the primary goal, not necessarily associated with a diverticulectomy. In our experience a tailored surgical treatment provided best results.

After induction radiochemotherapy followed by surgery in locally advanced NSCLC, a pCR is achieved in a remarkable proportion of cases (27% in our experience). In such patients, a rewarding LTS (64% at 5 years) could be expected, especially when a single N2 station is involved at diagnosis or when an adjuvant treatment is administered. Nevertheless, recurrences after surgery are quite common (46%) and this evidence deserves further investigations and deeper analysis.

An impairment of respiratory function is evident in the immediate postoperative setting in patients with non-small cell lung cancer receiving induction chemoradiotherapy. In the long-term period, a general recovery in diffusing capacity of the lung for carbon monoxide was found, whereas an improvement of forced expiratory volume in 1 second, vital capacity, total lung capacity, and residual volume was detected in the younger population only.

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