A thoracotomy is when a surgeon goes between your ribs to get to your heart, lungs, or esophagus to diagnose or treat an illness. It's a major operation, and doctors usually don’t use it if something ...

Pleuroscopy for evaluation of pleural effusions and infections has been performed for centuries and is one of the oldest forms of minimally invasive surgery. The introduction of the double-lumen ...

A 22-year-old woman presented with paraplegia following a left-sided thoracotomy. Magnetic resonance imaging showed a dorsal epidural mass at the level of T6. The patient underwent an emergency T6/7 ...

Prophylactic Cranial Irradiation Versus Observation in Radically Treated Stage III Non–Small-Cell Lung Cancer: A Randomized Phase III NVALT-11/DLCRG-02 Study In 2002, the Society of Thoracic Surgeons ...

Patients may better tolerate video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS), but there are concerns about the potential for missing lymph node metastases. Over a recent 4-year study period, VATS lobectomy was ...

Dear Doctors: After a thoracotomy for lung cancer surgery, I had pain and tingling, along with tightness and spasms, in my midriff. I was told it would ease, but it hasn’t. It’s been a year, and the ...

The emergency department (ED) thoracotomy for traumatic arrest is one of the smost dramatic procedures in emergency medicine. It is the procedure that every emergency medicine trainee looks forward to ...

MASSIVE intrapleural hemorrhage is a rare but frequently fatal complication of spontaneous pneumothorax for which surgical treatment has only recently been utilized. This article summarizes published ...

Prehospital resuscitative thoracotomy was feasible for traumatic cardiac arrest (TCA) in a mature, physician-led, urban system and was associated with improved survival, particularly when performed ...

Thoracotomy Pathway (Age 12 and Under) This information explains what to expect each day you’re in the hospital after your thoracotomy. It also explains what you can do to get better faster. To view ...