Single incision extended video assisted transcervical thymectomy

In the last 30 years the introduction of VATS in the surgical practice made possible to perform a wide range of thoracic operations including thymectomy. We describe our single incision video-assisted transcervical thymectomy (VATT) for non-thymomatous myasthenia gravis and/or small (<2 cm) intrathymic thymoma in 13 patients. The mean operation time was of 164 minutes (range, 45–275 minutes). The length of hospitalization was 3 days (range, 2–5 days). Decrease of symptoms was obtained in the entire group after a mean follow up of 79 months (range, 8–150 months), and two patients had a complete stable remission. In conclusion, single incision extended transcervical thymectomy (TT) is a safe and successful procedure which allows a complete excision of the anterior mediastinal fat.