What’s new in advanced lung cancers?
The recent dramatic development of surgery and anaesthesiology made possible to extend surgical resection for lung cancer (LC) also in patients with important comorbidities. Moreover, the widespread of minimally invasive techniques (VATS procedures) have recently increased the number and the quality of interventions with a limited impact in patients’ postoperative course.
Recently, only few publications focused on the management of locally advanced LCs, even if this is one of the main issues a clinician has to manage in its daily clinical practice.
This is the reason why, in strict cooperation with The Journal of Thoracic Disease Editorial Board, I decided to dedicate a special issue of the journal in order to improve the knowledge on the treatment of such controversial tumors. The selection of the review articles covers most of the aspects of what surgeons are called to face when they have to treat a patient with an advanced LC, and have been written by world-renown experts in this field. The issues of N2 diseases, tumors involving the chest wall, the vertebral bodies or the mediastinum, bronchial, arterial and carinal sleeve resections and chest wall reconstruction after extended resections are covered by this supplement.
I am deeply indebted to all the Authors who contributed to the realization of the present JTD issue, as well as to all the friends of the JTD Editorial Board, particularly Amy and Anne, with whom we shared long e-mail conversations during these months.
Finally, this supplement is dedicated to all those women and men surgeons who, through their hard work, daily commitment and devotion in the field of thoracic surgery, help to promote and progress our specialty, ensuring patients a high quality of care, a better quality of life, improving their long-term survival.
