Preface

The thoracic cavity and intrathoracic organs have remained a mystery until relatively recently because their diseases are usually fatal, and they contain fascinating but also feared pathologies in which only the most experienced surgeons are brave enough to intervene. Cumulative increases in medical and surgical knowledge, transferred over generations, have enabled thoracic surgeons gradually to widen the scope of surgically treatable diseases.

Pulmonary lobectomy, which is the subject of this book, has undergone changes in terms of surgical technique and indications over time and still continues to do so. Today, with the help of technological developments, we are able to achieve larger surgery with smaller incisions, which is every surgeon's ideal. The minimally invasive thoracic surgery approach, which started with simple pleural-parenchymal interventions, has now reached a level where advanced lung resections from a single incision are successfully performed. We are now able to push the limits of minimal invasiveness with awake/tubeless VATS approaches, which have become increasingly popular in recent years, and it is certain that we will be even more successful in this regard in the future.

Unfortunately, the number of open-access textbooks in such an important area is limited. The difficulty of accessing a resource that deals with the theoretical and practical foundations of pulmonary lobectomy in an organized manner, blended with current literature knowledge, has been the driving force in the creation of this book.

I am proud to present this book, in which leading authors on pulmonary lobectomy are contributing significantly to the pool of scientific knowledge in this important field, and which will provide a basic resource for trainee and specialist physicians interested in the field of thoracic surgery. The book covers surgical anatomy of the lung, thoracoscopic and robotic lobectomy, lobectomy in the pediatric age, and post-lobectomy intensive care.

> **Güntuğ Batıhan** Department of Thoracic Surgery, Kars Harakani State Hospital, Kars, Turkey

**1**

Section 1

Surgical Anatomy
