An Appraisal of Minimal Invasive Surgery for Thoracic Child Neurogenic Tumour. A Multicentric Study

Mediastinal neurogenic tumors are relatively rare in children. Surgical resection is usually essential in there treatment. Minimal invasive surgery with video assisted thoracic surgery is more and more used in pediatric population, but his evaluation for resection of thoracic neurogenic tumors is little studied.

Thoracotomy has specific long terms post operative complications including scoliosis, shoulder elevation, winged scapula and asymmetric nipples. When compared to thoracotomy, thoracoscopy shows less operative blood loss, shorter duration of chest tube and length of stay.

Recently, the indications of thoracoscopic approach have been assessed according to the presence or absence of image-defined risk factors (IDRF) at diagnosis and after preoperative chemotherapy in a monocentric retrospective study. The authors concluded that thoracoscopy could be used for all paravertebral locations without IDRF except the IDRF of T9-T12 location and the presence of an intraspinal component but should be avoided for perivascular locations due to tight adherences of the tumour to the vessels and hence the risk of important bleeding.

The investigators aimed to conduct a multicentric retrospective study to assess the role of thoracoscopy in neurogenic thoracic tumours according to the presence or absence of IDRF at diagnosis, the surgical complications and outcome.