Treating lung cancer sans large incisions, risks

MANILA, Philippines — Lung cancer is responsible for the most number of malignancy-related deaths in the country, and is showing no signs of relenting, the Department of Health said.

While lung surgery has typically been performed using open procedures, the choice is increasingly becoming video-assisted thoracic surgery or VATS.

VATS is primarily utilized to treat conditions such as cancer, pneumothorax, infection, cysts and other thoracic disorders.

Research has shown that VATS provides patients with significant benefits that includes minimizing surgical and health risks, allowing a speedier recovery with less scarring, less pain, and less complications.

In line with its mission to provide quality health care through state-of-the-art facilities for Filipinos, the Lung Center of the Philippines hosted a symposium to discuss the state of the disease in the country, and the latest treatments available, such as VATS.

Benefits of VATS

While conventional thoracic surgery makes use of a large incision and requires rib spreading or breastbone splitting, VATS requires only small incisions of normally 2 to 6 centimeters through the guidance of a high-resolution camera.

Due to the minimal trauma, this procedure has shown to significantly reduce the complication rate during and after surgery, and blood loss volume. VATS-treated patients also showed a markedly reduced recovery time as compared to open thoracotomy—a one to two day hospital stay, where patients of a typical open thoracotomy require stays of 7 to 10 days.

Because VATS avoids the large chest incision and rib- spreading associated with a traditional thoracotomy, patients also rarely suffer from chronic and severe chest pains during and after surgery.

Given these benefits, VATS is finding an ever-increasing role in the diagnosis and treatment of a wide range of thoracic disorders, and not just in the field of lung cancer.

Is VATS is right for you?

The best candidates for the VATS procedure are individuals diagnosed with early stages of lung cancer. Patients with non-cancerous ailments of the lung are also considered for the procedure.

"All potential candidates are required to undergo thorough medical history screening and pre-operative tests in order to determine suitability for the VATS treatment," Dr. Jose Luis Danguilan said.

"All surgeries present risks and possibilities for complications. Only the surgeon can determine if a VATS procedure is right for a patient," he said.

Popularity of VATS

Surgery is considered as the only curative treatment for early-stage lung cancer patients today. VATS lobectomy has widely established itself as a viable–if not a more preferred–surgical approach to open lobectomy.

In many countries worldwide, VATS has been routinely performed for the majority of patients with early stage lung cancer since the mid-1990s.

Thr symposium included presentations from doctors Jose Luis Danguilan, Rey Desales, Guillermo Barroa Jr., Camilo Pada, Antonio Ramos, and  Edmund Villaroman, who founding members of the Philippine Association of Minimally Invasive Thoracic Surgeons, and Jun Paul Castolo. — Alixandra Caole Vila