Thymectomy with an endoscopic approach

Various surgical approaches, including endoscopic surgery, are used when operating on tumors of the anterior mediastinum. Accordingly, surgical approaches for anterior mediastinal tumors include conventional median sternotomy, transcervical thymectomy from the cervical region, lateral thoracic intercostal approach, and the subxiphoid approach. Recently, robot-assisted surgery and single-port surgery are now performed as new forms of endoscopic surgery in the field of thoracic surgery and are now being adapted for anterior mediastinal tumors. We review current endoscopic surgical approaches for anterior mediastinal tumors and describe surgical techniques for thymectomy by a lateral thoracic intercostal approach, which is currently widely performed, as well as thymectomy by a subxiphoid approach.