Video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery is finding an ever-increasing role in the diagnosis and treatment of a wide range of thoracic disorders that previously required sternotomy or open thoracotomy. The potential advantages of video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery include less postoperative pain, fewer operative complications, shortened hospital stay and reduced costs. The following review examin...

BACKGROUND Resuscitative thoracotomy is a heroic procedure that may offer the only survival hope for trauma patients in extremis. However, this operation has been the subject of much debate and its use, feasibility, outcomes, and cost are being continuously re-evaluated. METHODS This is a review of the most current (after 2000) literature on resuscitative thoracotomy, based on computer databa...

BACKGROUND Preliminary experience of video assisted thoracoscopic pneumonectomy in six patients with bronchogenic carcinoma is described. METHODS Four left and two right pneumonectomies were performed under video thoracoscopic imaging. Thoracoscopic instruments were passed through two separate stab incisions on the lateral chest wall and a separate 6 cm submammary incision was also created to...

We present the case of a 41-year-old woman who presented with chest pain. CT for possible pulmonary embolism showed a mass filling the left main pulmonary artery, with imaging features suggestive of pulmonary angiosarcoma. Open thoracotomy for excision of the mass revelaed no mass, only evidence of a chronic pulmonary thrombus of the left pulmonary artery. We conclude that the radiologic featur...

Bronchogenic cysts are congenital lesions from the primitive foregut, mostly located in the mediastinum. Surgical excision in symptomatic cases is often challenging. Video-assisted mediastinoscopy offers a safe and effective approach with less morbidity and shorter hospital stay compared to open sternotomy or posterolateral thoracotomy. We describe a case of a young female with a large symptoma...

A patient is described who underwent atrial septal defect repair at age 12 and presented 16 years later with angina. Coronary angiography revealed a right coronary artery to pulmonary artery fistula that had developed at the site of the previous thoracotomy. This is the first report of an acquired fistula of this type developing secondary to trauma associated with open heart surgery. Diagnosis,...