Video-Assisted Thoracoscopic Surgery versus Robotic-Assisted Thoracoscopic Surgery Thymectomy

Clinical features, diagnosis and thoracoscopic surgical treatment of thymic cysts

“…In our institution, we began each operation with the VATS technique, and this is the largest study of VATS surgery for thymic cysts to our knowledge. The operation time, intraoperative blood loss, and duration of hospital stay were similar to the values reported in the literature (4,16). Conversion to thoracotomy only occurred in one patient due to severely dense adhesion and pleural thickening.…”

“…We consider that active surgical management should be performed in patients for which thymoma or any other malignant tumor cannot be ruled out by imaging, even in asymptomatic patients, because of the unpredictability of clinical behavior. Lewis et al (15) performed the first VATS resection for (16). In the study from Kozu et al, the thoracoscopic procedure was used in 17 thymic cyst patients who were selected before the operation.…”

18F-FDG PET/CT is Useful for Pretreatment Assessment of the Histopathologic Type of Thymic Epithelial Tumors

“…Furthermore, type A and AB thymomas were shown to be less frequently associated with myasthenia gravis than tumors of type B [8]. Whenever possible, more-invasive thymomas and invasive carcinomas should be completely resected, as ectopic thymic tissue may have a negative impact on local control and survival [9,10]. In contrast, less-invasive thymomas may be excised using VATS technology, which combines minimal invasiveness and an acceptable extent of resection [2,11].…”

Robotic thymectomy

“…Both of these studies are notable for potentially having surgeon experience and era effect confound these results. One consistent disadvantage of robotic thymectomy, though, has been increased cost mostly related to the robotic instruments (5,8).…”