Go on the journey of VATS with more stamina and collaboration

I would first like to congratulate my dear friend Diego and the relevant colleagues on making “the journey of uniportal VATS” in reality and even a revolution. Excitingly, the book ‘this is life and the journey of uniportal VATS’ will usher you into the kaleidoscopic world of uniportal VATS and refresh your knowledge about it.

My first encounter with Diego was dated back in 2012 in Edinburg during the European 20-year Anniversary on VATS Lobectomy & consensus conference. At the time, I have had been impressed by his talk and his effort in bringing uniportal VATS into a potential vitality.

I always believe one-minor-port incision is an ultimate goal for minimally invasive surgery. Yet, given the discomfort of operation under one port for the surgeon and camera-holder and its limitation by instrument, not many thoracic surgeons can accept it at the very first beginning. But things change rapidly and tremendously, with the improvement of the technique and advancement of related instrument made possible by Diego. He makes this procedure not only applicable but with higher and higher proficiency. All these effort later facilitates the development of thoracic surgery.

Diego and I have kept a good relationship between each other since we met and we shared experience and lessons learned from daily practice. He knew I am well versed in VATS under spontaneous respiratory anesthesia and advanced surgeries, so he looked for a chance to learn the technique.

In 2013, I invited Diego to give a presentation in the Asia-Pacific Minimally Invasive Thoracic Surgery Conference, where I introduced to him the technique of VATS under spontaneous respiratory anesthesia. I am soon impressed (again) that he is so good at observing and achieve mastery of the technique. Meanwhile, he became adept to performing complicating thoracic surgeries with uniportal VATS such as Sleeve lobectomy, chest wall surgery etc.

Furthermore, Diego successfully completed uniportal VATS under spontaneous respiratory anesthesia, maximizing the benefit of both single port incision and anesthesia without intubation by combining these two techniques. We talked about how to practice “Tubeless VATS” and how to make VATS surgery easier and simpler, even simplest. Actually, witnessing unique advantage of spontaneous respiratory anesthesia with large amount of clinical experience, I had been working hard to spread this technique. Recently, in the first Pan-Asian Forum on Cooperation in Thoracic Surgery, after hearing my presentation about the Tubeless VATS technique, Dr. Toriaki Morikawa commented this technique as “your tubeless method is revolutionary since thoracotomy was established for 100 year”. That is both of our effort.

Diego was then able to deliver the technique to more and more countries and cities, further opening the gate of innovation and inspiration. To me, what Diego has done also serve to inspire the collaboration between thoracic surgeons, let along he is a very preferable collaborator and an upright and considerate friend.

Personally, I was deeply touched by Diego’s perseverance and diligence. He is a true ‘matador’ and fighter in the history of thoracic surgery. Diego has the Stamina to make the surgical technique more easy and practical, which march the technique towards a great step. I think from the association with Diego, one can easily feel the charm of a surgeon and may even get obsessed to surgery for beginner.

There is still much work to do in thoracic surgery. The journey of uniportal VATS is no doubt a significant and glorious part of the journey of thoracic surgery in history. To keep up with the journey, we need more stamina and collaboration.

Acknowledgments

Funding: None.

Footnote

Provenance and Peer Review: This article was commissioned by the editorial office, Video-Assisted Thoracic Surgery. The article did not undergo external peer review.

Conflicts of Interest: The author has completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form (available at http://dx.doi.org/10.21037/vats.2016.08.13). The author has no conflicts of interest to declare.

This editorial is preface of the new book This is life: the journey of uniportal VATS.

Ethical Statement: The author is accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

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