Chest Surgery Advancement Expands Treatment For Different Patients

A group of specialists from Instituto do Coração and Hospital das Clínicas launched the Multimedia Atlas of Thoracic Surgery , a publication that brings together information and experiences accumulated over more than seven decades of operation in what is the largest hospital complex in Latin America.

Professor Paulo Pêgo-Fernandes, head of the Thoracic Surgery division at the Instituto do Coração of the Hospital das Clínicas of the Faculty of Medicine of USP and editor of the Atlas , explains the content of the book: “There are more than 200 videos and audios with content, in addition to to have a very detailed point-by-point atlas of surgical technique. But I think the big difference is that, in addition to drawings and diagrams, we have QRcodes that are interactive videos. You have a video and someone experienced goes through the surgery step by step and gives tips, I don’t know of any book even at an international level in the chest surgery specialty that has this”.

The Atlas has thoracic surgeons as its target audience, from recent graduates, those who are still in their residency period, to those who graduated a long time ago and are looking to learn about new surgical techniques.

Evolution of chest surgery
Each year, more than a thousand surgeries of this type are performed. The specialist comments on the different methods that surgery uses, methods that are contemplated in the Atlas: “If we look at it from a historical point of view, it [chest surgery] practically starts in the 20th century and, at the beginning of the century, tuberculosis was treated a lot, sequelae of tuberculosis. In that period, there was no drug treatment, drugs for tuberculosis, and most of the major complications required chest surgery. That kept changing, in the 1980s videosurgery, videolaparoscopy, videothorax appeared and that was a huge change, it was perhaps the second great revolution in thoracic surgery and the third that we are going through now is the use of robots”. Robots have gained space especially in the treatment of tumors, according to the professor.

Patient’s needs
Faced with so many surgery options, it is essential to know these methods and to know which ones to apply in different patients, with their different needs: “What you have to do from the medical point of view in chest surgery and in other areas is to know what it is better for that specific case, for that specific patient. You, having access to all modalities, are able to choose appropriately for that patient”, and emphasizes that one treatment does not replace the other, but the indications may vary.