Objective: To study the clinical efficacy of lymphadenectomy of lung cancer by video-assisted thoracic small incision surgery.
Methods: Radical lobectomy or pneumonectomy and systemic lymphadenectomy were performed in 197 patients with NSCLC through video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery. Pathological type and grade, total number of dissected lymph nodes, number of metastatic lymph nodes, survival and life quality were evaluated.
Results: The average of dissected lymph nodes was 11.61 and 471 lymph nodes from 382 regions were confirmed to have metastasis. The metastatic rates were 24.1% and 20.6% respectively. There were no significant difference between video-assisted thoracic small incision surgery and conventional thoracotomy. The 1, 3, 5-year survival rates of stage I , II and III a had no significant difference between video-assisted thoracic small incision surgery and conventional thoracotomy.
Conclusion: Video-assisted thoracic small incision surgery achieves a similar efficacy as the traditional lymphadenectomy and lung cancer radical resection.