Clinical experience of the treatment of solitary pulmonary nodules with Da Vinci surgical system

A solitary pulmonary nodule (SPN) is defined as a round intraparenchimal lung lesion less than 3 cm in size, not associated with atelectasis or adenopathy. The aim of this study is to learn clinical experience of the treatment of SPN with Da Vinci Surgical System. A total of 9 patients with solitary pulmonary nodules (SPN) less than 3 cm in diameter was treated with Da Vinci Surgical System (Intuitive Surgical, California) in thoracic surgery department from General Hospital of Shenyang Militrary Region from November 2011 to March 2014. This group of patients included 3 males and 6 females, and the mean age was 51±9.9 yr (range: 41-74 yr). Most of the patients were no obvious clinical symptoms (7 cases were found by physical examination, others were with cough and expectoration). Their median medical history was 12 mo (range: 4 d-3 yr). All the lesions of patients were peripheral pulmonary nodules and the mean diameter of those was (1.4±0.6) cm(range: 0.8-2.8 cm). Wedge-shaped resection or lobectomy was perfo