Operative techniques in early-stage lung cancer.

Lung cancer is the most common cause of death by malignancy, responsible for more deaths than the next 4 causes combined and predicted to account for nearly 220,000 new cancer diagnoses and 160,000 deaths in 2009. The cornerstone of therapy for early-stage lung cancer is lobectomy and mediastinal lymph node dissection. Although lobectomy is considered the standard procedure, segmentectomy may be appropriate for selected patients. Conventional approaches to resection may be used, including posterolateral and muscle-sparing thoracotomy. However, minimally invasive lobectomy and segmentectomy procedures are now commonly used with superior outcomes.