Thoracic Surgery

Thoracic surgery is a medical speciality which covers treatment and surgical interventions connected to diseases affecting the thoracic, pulmonary and mediastinal walls.
Thoracic surgeons draw up the treatment plan in cooperation with any other specialities concerned (pneumology, oncology, radiology, radio-oncology and pathology) during weekly multidisciplinary meetings.
Multidisciplinary treatment for some conditions, such as lung cancer (the most frequently fatal type of cancer throughout the world), can provide curative treatment. Thoracic surgery plays a regulating role, both in terms of diagnosis and of treatment. If surgery is possible, it is still, at the moment, the only curative treatment.
 
Aside from oncological conditions, thoracic surgery treats infectious diseases (suppurative pleurisy, pulmonary abcesses), traumatic conditions (costal, sternal and pulmonary), malformative conditions (funnel chest), neurological conditions (sweaty palms, erythrophobia) and functional conditions (pneumothorax, pneumopathies).
The thoracic surgeons’ activities are based within Valais Hospital, which provides them with an infrastructure allowing them to carry out this type of intervention. The fact that other surgical specialities are also present on the site (vascular, cardiac, ENT, plastic surgeons etc.) allows for complex interventions to be carried out.
 
In order to provide patients with the best treatment with as little functional and cosmetic damage as possible, we carry out interventions that are as little invasive as possible, such as thoracoscopy or mediastinoscopy. We also integrate patients into outpatient functional re-education programmes.
 
Our activities are not limited to Valais Hospital, but also extend to the Hôpitaux Universitaires Genève (HUG) in order to benefit from further training in the fields of new medical or interventional technologies. This allows Valais Hospital to be part of a small group of Swiss centres that offer the whole range of modern treatment in the field of thoracic surgery.
 

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