MINIMALLY INVASIVE SURGERY OF THE LUNGS

摘要

Minimally invasive surgery (MIS) of the chest of small animal patients has greatly expanded in the past decade. Many different procedures from diagnostic to therapeutic have been developed and are becoming the standard of care in veterinary medicine.Pulmonary surgery has been more recently developed due to the difficulty in working with the fragile parenchyma. As advanced therapies have been developed, more equipment has been "borrowed" from human medicine. Simple pieces, such as pre-made loop ligatures, are useful, but vessel sealing devices and endoscopic staplers have allowed for the rapid expansion of techniques. Veterinarians should realize, however, that the advancement in equipment does not replace the need for training and experience in thoracic surgery. Complications or inability to visualize the thoracic structures necessitate conversion to an open approach, so intercostal thoracotomy and median sternotomy should be quite familiar to and doable by the surgeon performing MIS of the lungs.