Hájek M, van der Heide J N
Thorax. 1970 Nov;25(6):720-4. doi: 10.1136/thx.25.6.720.
To the great disappointment of all concerned, too many operations performed for pulmonary carcinoma still prove to be exploratory thoracotomies or non-curative resections, in spite of careful preoperative investigations. A follow-up study of 168 patients operated upon for pulmonary carcinoma clearly shows that such non-curative procedures yield very disappointing results. To reduce this number of unnecessary and often harmful operations mediastinoscopy was introduced as an aid in detecting mediastinal spread of the tumour. It was thought that such knowledge would make preoperative assessment more accurate and so make easier the decision whether to operate.
令所有相关人员极为失望的是，尽管术前进行了仔细检查，但仍有太多针对肺癌实施的手术最终证明是 exploratory thoracotomies（此处原文可能有误，推测为“探查性开胸手术”）或非根治性切除术。一项对 168 例接受肺癌手术患者的随访研究清楚地表明，此类非根治性手术产生的结果非常令人失望。为了减少这类不必要且往往有害的手术数量，纵隔镜检查被引入以辅助检测肿瘤的纵隔扩散情况。人们认为，这样的信息会使术前评估更加准确，从而更便于做出是否进行手术的决定。
