Completely portal robotic Pancoast tumour resection with en bloc resection of the left upper lobe and chest wall.

Abstract

The current gold standard for the treatment of Pancoast tumours is considered to be neoadjuvant chemoradiation followed by radical resection of the affected upper lobe en bloc with resection of the chest wall. Shaw and Paulson first described the most commonly used approach in 1961 via an extended posterolateral thoracotomy. However, because this approach comes with significant soft tissue damage and occasionally provides only suboptimal exposure, especially for anterior superior sulcus tumours, other approaches have been published in recent years, including open anterior approaches (Dartevelle and Gruenenwald) in addition to rare case reports of minimally invasive assisted hybrid procedures. Because we routinely perform robotic anatomical lung resections as well as three-port robotic first rib resections for thoracic inlet/outlet syndrome in our department, combining both techniques with our accumulated experience seemed to be the next logical step. We describe step-by-step what is (to our knowledge) one of the first reported cases of a fully portal robotic-assisted Pancoast tumour resection consisting of a left upper lobe resection en bloc with the first rib after neoadjuvant chemoradiation therapy. This approach proved to be safe and allowed for excellent exposure, especially of the thoracic outlet.