Thoracic surgery is a full-fledged specialty of medicine dedicated to the surgical treatment of pathologies and diseases located in the thoracic, pulmonary and mediastinal wall, with the exception of the heart, aorta and esophagus. Lung transplantation is reserved for specialized centers.
In establishing the patient’s treatment plan, the thoracic surgeon works in close collaboration with the departments of pneumology, anesthesia, oncology, radiology, radio-oncology, gastroenterology and visceral surgery, whether services available within or outside the clinic Avicenne. Thoracic surgery as a multidisciplinary specialty plays a preponderant role in the diagnosis and in the treatment of certain pathologies, in particular lung cancer.
The areas of intervention of the thoracic surgeon relate to the diagnosis and surgical treatment of diseases that affect the lungs, trachea, bronchi and pleura. The conditions most often treated with thoracic surgery are:
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- Lung and mediastinal tumors, especially lung cancer and metastasis
- Diseases of the pleura and diaphragm: pleural biopsy, hernias, pleural tumors, etc.
- Pleural effusions
- Thoracic deformities such as the funnel thorax.
- Surgery of the esophagus, thyroid, mediastinum and chest wall.
The heart and esophagus are not involved in thoracic surgery and are part of other specialties of surgery (cardiac and visceral).
At the clinic Avicenne, we constantly strive to offer the best possible care to the patient in order to allow him an accelerated recovery and a shortened hospital stay. The thoracic surgeon now has modern techniques and approaches, such as thoracoscopy, thoracotomy or thoracic drainage, coupled with state-of-the-art infrastructure such as minimally invasive Video-Assisted Thoracoscopic Surgery(VATS), conservative surgery or laser surgery.