Thoracic incisions for open surgery

A large number of thoracic surgical procedures are still being performed via open incisions. The indications, approaches and potential benefits vary depending of the procedure to be performed, experience of the surgeons and patients’ choice. Even for surgeons with advanced minimally invasive skills open surgery remains the choice for certain procedures. We aim to describe in detail different incisions for open thoracic surgery, alongside their indications, possible pitfalls and advantages. Intraoperative pictures have been taken in order to clearly describe different steps of these different approaches.