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Lung cancer is the third most common malignancy in women (after breast and colon cancer) and the most common malignancy in men, while it is the second most common cause of death from malignancy in women (after breast cancer) and the most common cause of death from malignancy in men.

Causes

The main factor implicated in the occurrence of lung cancer is smoking, while other recognized causes are chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), family history of lung cancer, as well as chronic exposure to harmful factors, such as radon and asbestos.

Symptoms

The early stages of the disease are quite often not accompanied by symptoms and most of the time the diagnosis is made incidentally during an imaging examination, such as chest X-ray and CT scan.

Furthermore, when some symptoms are present, they are non-specific, such as cough and shortness of breath and are often attributed for some time to other more common diseases, such as respiratory infections and COPD. In the advanced stages of the disease, generalized symptoms such as weight loss, easy fatigue, chest pain and fever are observed.

Diagnosis

The diagnosis of lung cancer requires a biopsy of a suspicious lesion that allows for its histological and molecular identification, while treatment depends on the stage of the disease, with early stages being treated surgically, which ensures significant cure rates.

Surgical treatment

Surgical treatment of lung cancer is performed by the thoracic surgeon and involves the removal of the part of the lung that bears the lesion, combined with the removal of the lymph nodes located in the corresponding anatomical area (lymph node dissection). Surgical removal in these cases should include anatomical resections (lobectomy or segmentectomy), while less often the removal of the entire lung (pneumonectomy) is necessary.

Minimally invasive techniques

The available surgical techniques have evolved significantly in recent years, with the result that these surgical procedures are performed in most cases minimally invasively through small holes (thoracoscopically or robotically).

While the effectiveness of these techniques is the same as the corresponding classic open surgical procedures (thoracotomy), the patient recovers more smoothly, with a lower probability of postoperative complications, less postoperative pain, a shorter hospital stay and a faster return to daily life.

Thus, in the surgical treatment of early-stage lung cancer, as performed internationally in the largest reference centers, minimally invasive techniques have been established with the significant aforementioned benefits for the patient.