Lung cancer is the leading cause of death worldwide. With the prevalence of CT screening and early diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer in China, more and more patients with early stage lung cancer characterized with ground-glass opacity are discovered and urgently requiring treatment, which poses a significant challenge to surgeons. As an emerging technology, three dimensional reconstruction technology plays a crucial auxiliary role in clinical work. This review aims to briefly introduce this technology, focusing on its latest advances in surgical applications in early lung cancer screening, malignant risk assessment, and perioperative period application and medical education.
Thoracoscopic pulmonary segmentectomy is one of the important treatment methods for early lung cancer. Only the premise of surgical precision can make the radical resection of lesions and maximum reservation of healthy lung tissue be simultaneously guaranteed. As a representative of the precise lung operation, the " cone-shaped lung segmentectomy” focuses on the lesion, and combines the anatomical characteristic of the patient to design individualized operation scheme. The technological core consists of three parts, three dimensional-computed tomography bronchography and angiography (3D-CTBA) surgery path planning, accurate definition of intersegmental demarcation and anatomic dissection of intersegmental borders along the demarcation. This paper aims to explore the technical process and quality control of the key techniques of thoracoscopic precise segmentectomy, so as to standardize the segmentectomy procedure under the principle of radical and minimally invasive therapy.
ObjectiveTo explore the feasibility and clinical value of free-of-puncture positioning in three-dimension-guided anatomical segmentectomy for ground-glass nodule (GGN) compared with percutaneous positioning.MethodsClinical data of 268 enrolled patients undergoing anatomical pulmonary segmentectomy from October 2018 to June 2019 were retrospectively collected, including 75 males and 193 females with an average age of 56.55±12.10 years. The patients were divided into two groups, including a percutaneous positioning group (n=89) and a free-of-puncture positioning group (n=179). Perioperative data of the two groups were compared.ResultsThe average CT scan times of the percutaneous positioning group was 3.01±0.98 times, and the numerical rating scale (NRS) score of puncture pain was 3.98±1.61 points. Pulmonary compression pneumothorax (≥30%) occurred in 7 (7.87%) patients and intercostal vascular hemorrhage occurred in 8 (8.99%) patients after puncture. Lung nodules were successfully found and removed in both groups. There was no statistically significant difference between the two groups in the location of nodules (P=0.466), operation time (151.83±39.23 min vs. 154.35±33.19 min, P=0.585), margin width (2.07±0.35 cm vs. 1.98±0.28 cm, P=0.750), or the number of excised subsegments (2.83±1.13 vs. 2.73±1.16, P=0.530).ConclusionAnatomical segmentectomy with three-dimensional navigation avoids the adverse consequences of puncture, which has the same clinical efficacy and meets the requirements of oncology compared with percutaneous positioning. The free-of-puncture positioning method can be used for GGN located in the central region of pulmonary segment/subsegment or adjacent to intersegment veins instead of percutaneous positioning.
Objective To investigate whether 3D-guided cone-shaped segmentectomy can achieve comparable long-term outcomes with lobectomy for deep early-stage lung cancer with diameter≤2 cm. Methods We retrospectively screened patients with deep early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with diameter≤2 cm who underwent lobectomy or segmentectomy in the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University from 2012 to 2018. All pulmonary segmentectomy was performed using 3D-guided cone-shaped segmentectomy with segment or subsegment as the resection unit. Univariate and multivariate regression analyses were performed by Cox proportional hazard regression model. The patients who underwent segmentectomy and lobectomy were matched 1∶1 by propensity-score matching analysis. The oncological outcomes of two groups were compared. ResultsOur cohort was divided into a segmentectomy group (n=222) and a lobectomy group (n=127). The age, total nodule size, solid component size and proportion of pure solid nodule in the lobectomy group were significantly higher than those in the segmentectomy group. The median follow-up time was 49 months. Surgical margins were negative in all patients. The local recurrence rate of segmentectomy was 0.45%. The disease-free survival (DFS) rate and overall survival (OS) rate of patients in the segmentectomy group were significantly better than those in the lobectomy group (5-year DFS rate: 98.64% vs. 89.77%, P<0.001; 5-year OS rate: 99.55% vs. 92.10%, P<0.001). Multivariate regression analysis showed that the differences between two groups were not significant [DFS rate: HR=0.52. 95%CI (0.11, 2.59), P=0.427; OS rate: HR=0.08. 95%CI (0.00, 3.24), P=0.179] after adjusting for other factors. After propensity score matching, 77 patients were preserved in both segmentectomy group and lobectomy group, with the mean nodule size of 1.44 cm and 1.49 cm and the mean consolidation tumor ratio (CTR) of 0.46 and 0.52, respectively. There was no statistical difference in DFS rate (P=0.640) or OS rate (P=0.310) between the two groups. Conclusion3D-guided cone-shaped segmentectomy can be an acceptable treatment for low-grade malignant NSCLC deep in lung parenchyma with diameter≤2 cm, and its oncology effect is not inferior to lobectomy.