Early Experience of Pediatric Thoracoscopic Surgery Performed by a Pediatric Surgeon

Purpose: Minimally invasive surgery (MIS) in abdomen and thorax has been widely accepted for pediatric diseases. Thoracoscopic surgery has the advantage of less pain, better cosmetic outcomes and less musculoskeletal sequelae in comparison to open surgery. We would like to share our initial experience with thoracoscopic surgery performed by one pediatric surgeon. Methods: We performed a retrospective review of patients who underwent thoracoscopic surgery by one pediatric surgeon between April 2010 and August 2017 in Department of Pediatric Surgery, Seoul National University Children’s Hospital. Results: There were totally 18 cases; 8 cases for esophageal atresia, 3 cases for congenital diaphragm hernia, 2 cases for diaphragm eventration, 2 cases for esophageal duplication cyst, 2 cases for pleural mass and 1 case for esophageal bronchus. At the operation, median age was 9.5 months (range, 0-259 months) and median body weight was 9.4 kg (range, 1.9-49.4 kg). Median operative time was 157.5 minutes (range, 45-335 minutes). There was no case of open conversion and 2 cases of minor leakage at anastomosis site in case of esophageal atresia. Median follow-up month was 5 months (range, 0-87 months). During follow-up, 4 cases of esophageal atresia showed anastomosis site narrowing and average 2.5 times (range, 1-5 times) of esophageal balloon dilatation was done. Conclusion: We performed thoracoscopic surgery in case of esophageal, diaphragm disease and pleural mass. Thoracoscopic surgery can be an effective and feasible option of treatment for well-selected pediatric patients of intra-thoracic disease including esophagus, diaphragm and mediastinum disease.