Two-port approach for fully thoracoscopic right upper lobe sleeve lobectomy

Wenjie Jiao, Yandong Zhao, Tao Huang, Yi Shen

This report describes a case report of a minimally invasive technique for VATS right upper sleeve lobectomy with a two-port approach. To our knowledge it is the first report of this kind. A 50-year-old man with a pulmonary nodule occluding the orifice of the right upper lobe bronchus was referred to our department. Dissection, stapling the right upper lobe pulmonary vessels and anastomosis between the right intermediate and the right main bronchus were performed via the two port. To deal with blocking of pulmonary artery and obtain a satisfactory exposure and manipulating space in the course of bronchial anastomosis were the key points. Intraoperative blood loss was 150 ml and total operative time was 220 minutes. The postoperative course was uneventful. Chest X-rays showed no sign of atelectasis. Postoperative histopathological examination revealed that the tumor was T3N0M0 squamous cell carcinoma. The patient was discharged from hospital on postoperative day 9 without any complications. We conclude that video-assisted thoracoscopic sleeve lobectomy with mediastinal dissection by two-port approach is feasible and convenient.