What is the advantage of minimally invasive surgery for lung cancer over traditional surgery?

Postlateral incision is a conventional approach for traditional lung cancer surgery, which has a good surgical field of vision. However, the incision length of about 25 cm, the separation of chest wall muscles and the substantial expansion of ribs have brought great pain to patients, and the pain will even last for more than ten years. The impact of chest wall trauma is sometimes even considered beyond pneumonectomy itself.

Minimally invasive (thoracoscopic) surgery is a kind of "drilling" surgery, which has minimal damage to the chest wall muscles and does not require rib opening. Therefore, postoperative pain is light, functional recovery is faster, hospitalization time is shorter, inflammatory reaction is lighter, and the incidence of postoperative arrhythmia is less, which is conducive to improving the quality of life of patients.

Its minimally invasive nature also gives some elderly patients who can't tolerate conventional thoracotomy the opportunity of radical surgery. Patients undergoing thoracoscopic radical resection of lung cancer can usually be discharged from hospital within 4-5 days after operation, while routine thoracotomy often requires hospitalization for more than 10 days after operation. Thoracoscopic surgery to expand the clear surgical field of vision and accumulated surgical experience is an effective guarantee for radical surgery, so that the physiology and psychology of lung cancer patients can be restored as soon as possible, which is conducive to timely multidisciplinary treatment after surgery and achieve the best curative effect.