Objective    To evaluate the efficacy and safety of neoadjuvant chemotherapy (a CRTS group) plus surgery versus surgery alone (a SA group) in the treatment of resectable esophageal neoplasms. Methods    PubMed, Ovid Technologies, SCI, CBM Database, CNKI Database, VIP Database and Wanfang Database were searched to identify all published or unpublished RCTs those compared neoadjuvant chemotherapy plus surgery with surgery alone for resectable esophageal neoplasms up to August 1, 2015. Meta-analysis was conducted by using Stata12.0 software. Results    Twenty-six RCTs included 3 252 patients (1 606 in the CRTS group, 1 646 in the SA group) were selected. There was a significant difference between the CRTS group and the SA group in 3-year survival rate, 5-year survival rate, R0 resection rate, local recurrence rate, local recurrence and distant metastasis rate with relative risk (RR) value and 95%CI at 1.24 (1.13–1.36, P<0.000 1), 1.29 (1.10–1.50, P=0.001), 1.13 (1.05–1.212, P=0.001), 0.67 (0.52–0.85, P=0.001), 0.60 (0.40–0.90, P=0.013). And there was no significant difference between the CRTS group and the SA group in 1-year survival rate and distant metastasis with RR (95%CI) of 1.05 (0.99–1.12, P=0.103) and 0.84 (0.70–1.00, P=0.053). There was no significant  difference in postoperative complications, 30-days mortality, pulmonary infections, anastomotic leakage, anastomotic stricture, cardiac complications, chylothorax between the two groups with RR (95%CI) at 1.09 (0.96–1.24, P=0.166), 1.32 (0.96–1.83, P=0.485), 1.45 (0.94–2.23, P=0.091), 0.89 (0.63–1.25, P=0.485), 0.93 (0.64–1.35, P=0.731), 1.24(0.84–1.87, P=0.283), and 1.62 (0.85–3.07, P=0.142). Conclusion    CRTS significantly benefits to survival rate, R0 rescetion rate, and local recurrence rate compared to SA. Additionally there is no increased postoperative complication for patients with resectable esophageal neoplasms.

Lymph node metastasis in non-small cell lung cancer is an independent risk factor for poor prognosis. Resection of lymph nodes can improve the prognosis of patients. Although surgical techniques are progressing, there is still much controversy about the way of lymph node resection for non-small cell lung cancer. The research progress of hot topics such as the choice of lymph node resection methods for non-small cell lung cancer is discussed and summarized.

The incidence of rib fracture in patients with chest trauma is about 70%. Simple rib fractures do not need special treatment. Multiple rib fractures and flail chest are critical cases of blunt trauma, which often cause serious clinical consequences and need to be treated cautiously. Nowadays, there is a controversy about the diagnosis and treatment of multiple rib fractures and flail chest. In the past, most of the patients were treated by non-operative treatment, and only less than 1% of the patients with flail chest underwent surgery. In recent years, studies have confirmed that surgical reduction and internal fixation can shorten the hospital stay, and reduce pain and cost for patients with flail chest, but there is still a lack of relevant clinical consensus and guidelines for diagnosis and treatment, which leads to great differences in clinical diagnosis and treatment plans. This article reviewed the treatment, surgical indications and surgical timing of multiple rib fractures and flail chest.

Surgery is an important method in the treatment of esophageal cancer. With the application of robotic surgery system, more and more surgeons have observed its huge advantages over the conventional minimally invasive surgical system in the esophageal surgery. To ensure the safety and fluency of the robotic surgery, it needs not only an experienced attending surgeon but also a well-trained assistant. This study summaries the skills of the surgical assistant in the robotic esophagectomy.

Objective    To compare the surgical efficacy of Da Vinci robot-assisted minimally invasive esophagectomy (RAMIE) and video-assisted minimally invasive esophagectomy (VAMIE) on esophageal cancer. Methods    Online databases including PubMed, the Cochrane Library, Medline, EMbase and CNKI from inception to 31, December 2019 were searched by two researchers independently to collect the literature comparing the clinical efficacy of RAMIE and VAMIE on esophageal cancer. Newcastle-Ottawa Scale was used to assess quality of the literature. The meta-analysis was performed by RevMan 5.3. Results    A total of 14 studies with 1 160 patients were enrolled in the final study, and 12 studies were of high quality. RAMIE did not significantly prolong total operative time (P=0.20). No statistical difference was observed in the thoracic surgical time through the McKeown surgical approach (MD=3.35, 95%CI –3.93 to 10.62, P=0.37) or in surgical blood loss between RAMIE and VAMIE (MD=–9.48, 95%CI –27.91 to 8.95, P=0.31). While the RAMIE could dissect more lymph nodes in total and more lymph nodes along the left recurrent laryngeal recurrent nerve (MD=2.24, 95%CI 1.09 to 3.39, P=0.000 1; MD=0.89, 95%CI 0.13 to 1.65, P=0.02) and had a lower incidence of vocal cord paralysis (RR=0.70, 95%CI 0.53 to 0.92, P=0.009). Conclusion    There is no statistical difference observed between RAMIE and VAMIE in surgical time and blood loss. RAMIE can harvest more lymph nodes than VAMIE, especially left laryngeal nerve lymph nodes. RAMIE shows a better performance in reducing the left laryngeal nerve injury and a lower rate of vocal cord paralysis compared with VAMIE.