Is it safe to include octogenarians at the start of a video-assisted thoracic surgery lobectomy programme?

Abstract

Octogenarians undergoing VMPR have a higher incidence of atrial fibrillation and admission to the intensive care unit for cardiopulmonary support but otherwise are no different from younger age groups when it comes to rate of conversion to thoracotomy, hospital stay, morbidity and mortality. Age should not be an excuse to deny the elderly curative VATS resection. In our experience, accepting octogenarians early in the VMPR programme did not compromise the outcome results.