Balloon-assisted thoracoscopic surgery for apex posterior mediastinal benign neurogenic tumor

Improvement in technique and instrumentation makes thoracoscopic surgery increasingly popular in the thoracic area, including posterior mediastinal benign neurogenic tumor (PMBNT), which was one of the earliest tumors resected by thoracoscopic surgery. PMBNT is a common thoracic tumor. Neurogenic tumors account for 75% of posterior mediastinal tumors (1), in which 70–80% are benign in adults (2,3). Currently, thoracoscopic resection has been widely used in the treatment of PMBNT, and some surgeons even successfully have performed single-port thoracoscopic resection.