The Staging of Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma

Staging of malignant pleural mesothelioma has been challenging because of a paucity of cases and poor survival. At least 5 staging systems were proposed before 1990 until the first consensus system was published in 1995. This system used tumor, node, metastasis designations and borrowed heavily from parenchymal lung cancer descriptors. With the establishment of a database to collect cases from 1995 to 2013, evidence-based revisions to the 1995 staging classification were published in 2016. With improving imaging technology, clinical staging will become more refined and, it is hoped, more useful for prognostication even without operative resection.

Zone zero hybrid arch exclusion versus open total arch replacement

Open total aortic arch replacement is one of the most technically demanding operations in cardiothoracic surgery, requiring operator expertise and intraoperative and postoperative teamwork. Despite current advancements in the field of open aortic surgery with regard to intraoperative brain protection and postoperative care, the morbidity and mortality associated with open total arch operations varies. Endovascular and hybrid procedures involving the use of zone 0 as a landing zone allow fair comparison between open total arch and hybrid operations. Hybrid procedures involving all of the other landing zones [1-4] should not be compared with open total arch replacement, as the extent of the pathology is different.