Advanced Lung Cancer: Radical Surgical Therapy
P re f a c e Advanced Lung Cancer: R a d i c a l Su r g i c a l Th e r a p y
Raja M. Flores, MD Editor
The decision to operate on such cases requires evaluation of tumor biology, assessment of response to neoadjuvant therapy, careful surgical planning, and an in-depth dialogue with the patient to ensure a realistic view of the possible outcomes. The articles in this issue are written by many distinguished surgeons who have first-hand experience in performing these procedures. Surgical technique is critical; however, careful patient selection is the key to successful outcomes. Raja M. Flores, MD Ames Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery Chairman, Department of Thoracic Surgery Mount Sinai Health System Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai One Gustave L. Levy Place, Box 1023 New York, NY 10029, USA
Thorac Surg Clin 24 (2014) xiii http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.thorsurg.2014.08.002 1547-4127/14/$ – see front matter Ó 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Advanced lung cancer is synonymous with patients suffering from stage III and IV disease. Surgery is not routinely recommended for patients with such advanced disease and must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Many times this is a personal choice for the patient. Younger and stronger patients tend to seek out more aggressive therapy. This issue was designed as a resource for surgeons treating patients seeking radical surgical treatment. Advancements in chemotherapy and targeted therapy have influenced our decisions to perform procedures that we normally would not consider in our surgical repertoire for routine treatment. The older definition of radical surgery meant removing the mediastinal lymph nodes with either a lobectomy or a pneumonectomy. Today, radical surgery implies resection of structures adjacent to the lung that would normally not be resected in an effort to obtain negative margins. Radical surgery also encompasses resection in patients otherwise deemed too high-risk for surgery based on physiologic factors, metastasis of cancer, or extent of resection.