CASE REPORT   

Minerva Respiratory Medicine 2022 March;61(1):27-31

DOI: 10.23736/S2784-8477.21.01947-1

Copyright © 2021 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

A case of sequential endoscopic-surgical lung volume reduction: a bridge to lung transplantation

Marcello C. AMBROGI ¹, Elisa SICOLO ¹ ✉, Olivia FANUCCHI ², Alessandro PICCHI ², Alessandro RIBECHINI ²

¹ Division of Thoracic Surgery, Department of Surgical Medical and Molecular Pathology and Critical Area, University Hospital of Pisa, Pisa, Italy; ² Division of Thoracic Endoscopy, Department of Cardiac Thoracic and Vascular, University Hospital of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

Bronchoscopic lung volume reduction (BLVR) and surgical lung volume reduction (SLVR) are two different approaches used to remodel emphysematous lungs to improve lung function. Both these therapies can also be considered as bridge treatment for lung transplantation. We present a case of a man, suffering from severe bullous emphysema, that was evaluated as a candidate for lung transplantation. The presence of pulmonary nodules, in the left upper lobe, would have precluded this possibility. Thus, after a multidisciplinary discussion, we planned a BLVR of the right upper lobe in order to safely perform, few months after, SLVR and wedge resection of the lung nodules via uniportal-video-assisted-thoracic-surgery (U-VATS). To our knowledge, no similar case has previously been reported in the literature.

KEY WORDS: Emphysema; Pneumonectomy; Surgical procedures, operative