Extreme thoracic surgery: the past and the present of extended pulmonary resections

Since the first resection of a chest wall tumour was reported by Parham in 1899 (1), extended pulmonary resections due to locally advanced lung cancer remain a challenge for many thoracic surgeons. Milestones of this long and exciting history include the report by Shaw et al. in 1961 on superior sulcus tumour management (2), as well as the detailed techniques described by Dartevelle et al. in 1991 concerning prosthetic replacement of the superior vena cava and the anterior approach to thoracic inlet tumours in 1993 (3,4).