Thoracic and Respiratory Surgery

Operations on the lungs, airway below the throat, chest wall and the space around the lungs. This includes lung resections such as lobectomy, pneumonectomy and segmental resection, airway procedures such as bronchoscopy and tracheostomy, chest wall and pleural procedures such as thoracotomy, thoracentesis and pleurodesis, and minimally invasive thoracic approaches such as video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery. Heart procedures that also require entering the chest, such as sternotomy performed for cardiac access, are grouped instead under cardiovascular surgery, since the operated organ is the heart rather than the lung or airway.