Innovation in thoracic surgery is today increasingly focused on minimally invasive techniques that may reduce postoperative pain and morbidity while offering short hospitalization and optimal cosmesis.
Non-intubated thoracic surgery is aimed at providing ultra-minimally invasive surgical care by summing up the advantages of video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery to those of anesthesia methods which do not require general anesthesia and tracheal intubation.
The rationale is that avoidance of adverse effects of intubated anesthesia with single-lung mechanical ventilation could result in smoother and more rapid recovery than standard thoracoscopic surgery, and could also allow to operate on patients otherwise considered inoperable due to their advanced age, poor pulmonary function or other associated co-morbidity.
This focused issue of the Annals of Translational Medicine is aimed at summarizing some of the most recent advances achieved in this innovative field of thoracic surgery.
