Robotic thoracic surgery: from the perspectives of European chest surgeons.

Although thoracic surgery is one of the fastest growing programs, the results of robotic thoracic surgery reports are presented very rarely. In this manuscript, the development of robotic thoracic surgery programs in Europe and the initial results are discussed. Several European countries lead the development of robotic surgery in the world, especially for lung cancer surgery and for thymus-thymoma surgery. Yet, we may not recognize any major advantage in the outcome when compared to video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS). But, certainly, the superior capabilities of the intraoperative instrumentation of robotic surgery will be beneficial. More experience in robotic surgery may provide superior results in oncological, physiological and life quality measurements.