Page 2 - Read Online
P. 2
Topic: Robotic Lobectomy
Dr. Valérie Lacroix (MD, PhD) was graduated from
General Surgery of Université catholique de Louvain
(Belgium) in 2004. She has been working in the
Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery Department of
Cliniques Universitaires Saint Luc, Brussels, Belgium
since then. She first performed vascular surgery and
was presented with a PhD about numerical models of
peripheral arterial bypasses. She performs oncological
pulmonary resections, mediastinal tumours and chest
wall surgery, infectious disease management and chest
deformity reconstructions. She is recognised by the
European Union as Medical Specialists.
She started the robotic thoracic program in 2012. The
cardiovascular and thoracic unit which Dr Lacroix
worked in had already acquired competences in robotic
cardiac surgery by then. Her robotic thoracic training
was supported by the professional advice of Prof. Melfi
Valérie Lacroix, MD, PhD Franca (Pisa-Italy). She acquired much experience in
Dept of Cardiovasc & Thorac Surg, robotic thoracic surgery and organised two national
Clin Univ St Luc, Brussels, Belgium. symposia about robotic thoracic surgery.
It was rapidly observed that the robotic patients clearly
required a significant lighter per and postoperative
analgesia protocol, and that their evaluation of quality
of life was really satisfactory. The first experience in
4-arm robotic approach for lobectomy was published
in 2015 (Pain, Quality of Life, and Clinical Outcomes
after Robotic Lobectomy. Lacroix V, Mosala Nezhad Z,
Kahn D, Steyaert A, Poncelet A, Pieters T, Noirhomme
P. Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 2017 Aug;65(5):344-350).
The interest in studying the pulmonary function and its
postoperative recovery was also great. The results of a
comparative study were published in 2020 (Robotic
Assisted Lobectomy favors early lung recovery versus
limited thoracotomy. Lacroix V, Kahn D, Matte P,
Pieters T, Noirhomme P, Poncelet A, Steyaert A. Thorac
Cardiovasc Surg 2020).
