Video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) for cancer. Risk of parietal seeding and of early local recurrence.

Both parietal seeding and early local recurrence have been anecdotally (24 cases) reported in the surgical literature after video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) for cancer. However, not all the cases reported were undoubtedly related to the thoracoscopic approach itself, several of those thoracoscopic procedures addressed locally advanced neoplastic processes, and protective measures against parietal contamination were not taken in one half of the patients. Strict adherence to the classic principles of carcinologic surgery should minimize the risk of both parietal and pleural grafting after VATS for cancer.