Video-assisted Thoracoscopic Surgery for Treatment of Earlystage Non-small Cell Lung Cancer

Objectives: To evaluate the safety, efficacy, and invasiveness of lobectomy by video-assisted thoracoscopicsurgery (VATS) in the treatment of stage I/II non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
Methods: A total of 148patients presenting with Stage I or II NSCLC were enrolled into our study, comprising 71 who underwent VATSand 77 patients undergoing conventional thoracotomic lobectomy, in combination with systematic lymph noderesection.
Results: It was found that VATS was superior to conventional thoracotomy in terms of the durationof surgery, intraoperative blood loss, frequency of the need to administer postoperative analgesia, thoracicintubation indwelling time, post-operative hospital stay, and survival rate (P<0.05). We saw no obvious differencein the number of resected lymph nodes with either approach.
Conclusions: VATS lobectomy is a safe and reliablesurgical approach for the treatment of Stage I/II NSCLC, characterized by significantly minimal invasiveness,rapid post-operative recovery, and markedly lower loss of blood.