Randomized Open Label Two Arms Cohort Study to Evaluate Curative Effect and Quality of Life of Single Port and Two Ports Robotic Assisted Thoracic Surgery for Thymectomy

The gold standard technique for thymectomy used to be transsternal approach. Advancements in modern technology bring many evolutions in minimally invasive surgery such as Video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) thymectomy gained popularity after 2000s. Recently, robotic-assisted thoracic surgery (RATS) has become into as an alternative approach to either, open surgery or video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery. The superiorities of RATS have been reported in series studies, such as intuitive movements, tremor filtration, more degrees of manipulative freedom, motion scaling, and high-definition stereoscopic vision.

However, the currently reported robotic thymectomy used 3 ports. Theoretically, less incisions may bring faster postoperative recovery, lighter postoperative pain and higher postoperative quality of life. The investigators have successfully performed robotic thymectomy through 2 ports and even 1 port. However, the potential benefit of less ports robotic thymectomy has not been verified through well-designed cohort study, so this clinical trial has been designed.