Lana Schumacher, MD, MS, FACS, Editor

David Griffin, MD, FACS, Editor

It is our great pleasure to introduce the latest issue of Thoracic Surgery Clinics entitled “Controversies in Thoracic Surgery.” Surgical technique continues to evolve, and increased adoption of minimally invasive techniques drive improvements in surgical care. Furthermore, exciting advances in collaborative fields, such as medical oncology and gastrointestinal endoscopy, have dramatically impacted how we practice as thoracic surgeons and have, in some cases, kept us (and our patients) out of the operating room.Although much has changed in our field since the last Controversies issue was published in 2016, many of the same vexing questions remain. The nature of surgical care makes it difficult to generate level one evidence, the holy grail of medical decision making, and mandates us to rely on systematic retrospective reviews and expert opinion in many cases to make decisions. As you know, this level of evidence innately generates controversy about the best treatment path for our patients given the inherent limitations.1The value of systemic meta-analyses in surgery.

The following well-written articles from content experts touch on the full breadth and depth of thoracic surgery and detail exactly how these changes impact our decision making. We are hopeful that you will find these articles useful for answering the difficult but exceedingly common questions in general thoracic surgery.

These questions include how best to incorporate novel immunotherapy agents in the treatment of common thoracic malignancies, best practices for metastasectomy as well as endoscopic advances in the treatment of benign esophageal disease, such as reflux and achalasia. Furthermore, other authors describe the current understanding of the long-standing controversy in thoracic surgery, pulmonary resection versus radiotherapy for early-stage lung cancer in high-risk patients.

We would like to thank all of the authors and contributors for their well-researched and insightful articles. We would also like to thank Dr Litle and the publishing team at Elsevier for their invaluable assistance, mentorship, and support.

Reference

The value of systemic meta-analyses in surgery.

Eur Surg Res. 62: 221-228Article infoIdentification

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.thorsurg.2023.02.002

Copyright

© 2023 Published by Elsevier Inc.

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