ArticleJournal of thoracic disease2025
Factors influencing the difficulty of video-assisted thoracoscopic anterior mediastinal tumor resection via the subxiphoid approach.
Article in Journal of thoracic disease, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Video-assisted thoracoscopic mediastinal tumor resection via the subxiphoid approach (SVATS) is the mainstream surgical method for treating anterior mediastinal tumors. The impact of thoracic and mediastinal size on surgery has long been described only as a subjective feeling, and no related research has been reported. In this study, we retrospectively investigated the preoperative predictive factors affecting SVATS, focusing on the depth of the anterior mediastinum and thoracic morphology (width and depth). Methods: We studied 133 patients with mediastinal tumors. All had video thoracoscopic surgery through a subxiphoid approach by skilled senior doctors. Patients were divided into the difficult group and the common group according to whether the operation time exceeded the median value. We gathered their clinical data, computed tomography (CT) scans, and postoperative outcomes. We measured the distance from the sternum to the aorta, from the sternum to the spine, and the maximum transverse diameter of the thoracic cavity at the carina level on CT scans, representing the anterior mediastinal depth, thoracic cavity depth, and thoracic cavity width, respectively. Results: All the patients were discharged alive, and the average maximum diameter of the mediastinal tumor was 27.1 cm (interquartile range, 21.70-37.35 cm). There were no significant differences in age, sex, body mass index (BMI), preoperative cardiopulmonary comorbidities, postoperative complications, intensive care unit (ICU) stay, or postoperative hospital stay between the two groups (all P>0.05). Univariate regression analysis revealed that age, thoracic cavity depth, thoracic cavity width, and the ratio of thoracic cavity depth to width were associated with surgical difficulty (P=0.02, P=0.046, P=0.03, P=0.002). Multivariate regression analysis revealed that the independent predictive factors for difficult SVATS did not include the depth of the anterior mediastinum, but rather the depth of the thoracic cavity (P=0.006) and the width of the thoracic cavity (P=0.003). Conclusions: Thoracic morphology (width and depth), rather than the depth of the anterior mediastinum, is a predictive factor for the difficulty of SVATS.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.