Diagnostic strategies and surgical procedures for thoracic tumors

An overview of diagnostic and therapeutic strategies in the treatment of neoplasms in the chest. We investigated whether the success of a particular type of surgery depended on the experience of the surgeon and patient-related limitations. Both proved to be good predictors for the success of the operation. The investigation of lymph nodes near the lungs is important for the choice of treatment and outcome of this treatment in lung cancer. With the emergence of new puncture techniques, the number of operations to investigate lymph nodes near the lungs will decrease. The role of these operations will have to be redefined. Due to lung cancer screening, more small lung tumors will be found. We showed that locating small lung tumors prior to a 'videoscopic operation' is a safe and reliable method to remove small lung tumors. Patients with 1-5 metastases to the lungs were operated or irradiated. It turned out that the survival of the patients treated with an operation was not better than patients treated with radiation. Even after 6 years there appeared to be no evidence that an operation of metastases in the lung gives a better survival than radiation. We also looked at survival and the risk of lung cancer recurrence in patients with early-stage lung cancer treated with surgery or with radiation. Radiation gave poorer local control of lung cancer than surgery, but turned out to be an excellent treatment for patients with early stage lung cancer who were not fit enough to undergo surgery