Lymph node dissection in surgery for lung cancer: Comparison of open vs. video-assisted vs. robotic-assisted approaches

İstanbul Bilim Üniversitesi, Tıp Fakültesi.Purpose: We compared open, video-assisted and robotic-assisted thoracoscopic surgical techniques in the dissection of N1 and N2-level lymph nodes during surgery for lung cancer. Methods: This retrospective analysis is based on prospectively collected data of patients (excluding those with N2 or N3 diseases, and sleeve resections) undergoing mediastinal lymph node dissection via open (n = 96), video-assisted thoracoscopy (n = 68), and robotic-assisted thoracoscopy (n = 106). The groups are compared according to the number of lymph node stations dissected, the number of lymph nodes dissected, and the number of lymph nodes dissected by stations. Results: Three techniques had similar results based on the number of the dissected N1 and N2-level lymph node stations. Robotic-assisted thoracoscopic surgery yielded significantly more lymph nodes in total (p = 0.0007), and in the number of dissected N1-level nodes (p