Robotic lobectomy for tumor removal

THORACIC cancer comes in many forms, including esophageal, lung and trachea. In the U.S., according to the American Cancer Society, lung cancer is the second most common cancer in both men and women. 

“Lung cancer accounts for about 14% of all new cancers,” said Thomas Lee Bauer II, M.D., medical director of Thoracic Oncology and chief of thoracic surgery at Meridian Cancer Care.

Each year, more people die of lung cancer than of colon, breast, and prostate cancers combined.

“It is by far the leading cause of cancer death among both men and women today,” he said.

Dr. Bauer and Meridian Health’s Ghulam Abbas, M.D., MCHM, FACS, director of Minimally Invasive Thoracic Surgery, recently performed robotic lobectomy on a patient suffering from lung cancer at Riverview Medical Center in Red Bank, New Jersey.

Robotic lobectomy is a type of lung cancer surgery that removes the entire tumor and affected lobe through small incisions in the chest. It utilizes advanced technology and techniques to treat forms of thoracic cancer, reducing the pain and recovery time associated with traditional surgery.

Using Riverview’s robotic da Vinci Surgical System, which optimizes a surgeon’s optical view of the cancerous tumor, Drs. Abbas and Bauer successfully removed the centralized tumor from a patient suffering from lung cancer without the need for large incisions or cracking of the ribs.

“The minimally invasive robotic approach to thoracic surgery greatly improves upon the traditional methods employed by surgeons,” said Dr. Abbas. “Now, Meridian Cancer Care physicians are able to more accurately dissect and remove tumors through smaller incisions, leading to better outcomes, shorter recovery times and less pain.”

Split screen shows how a surgeon uses da Vinci Surgical System

According to Mark J. Krasna, M.D., corporate medical director, Meridian Cancer Care, “The addition of minimally invasive robotic thoracic surgery is further reinforcement of Meridian Cancer Care’s commitment to expanding and improving its comprehensive services to offer the absolute best care to this community.”

Meridian Health is the only system partner of the Rutgers Cancer Institute, New Jersey’s only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center (NCI-CCC). The NCI-CCC designation the centers to investigate and share the nation’s very latest treatments and most promising clinical trials.