With the adoption of the surgical principles emphasizing minimally invasive, precise, and individualized procedures, the sternum elevation via the subxiphoid approach for thoracoscopic surgery has become an important technique for the resection of anterior mediastinal masses. This method offers significant advantages in terms of increasing surgical field exposure, reducing surgical trauma, alleviating postoperative pain, and improving cosmetic outcomes. To establish a standardized surgical system and promote the consistent implementation of this technique, this consensus integrates the practical experiences of multiple thoracic surgery centers in China and relevant literature reports. It addresses core clinical issues such as surgical indications, preoperative assessment, anesthesia and intraoperative cooperation, key surgical techniques, postoperative management, prevention and treatment of complications, as well as training and quality control systems. The aim is to provide a safer and more effective minimally invasive solution for patients with anterior mediastinal masses and to facilitate the innovation of minimally invasive surgical modalities for the anterior mediastinum.
The surgical management of empyema (excluding those caused by mycobacterium tuberculosis and non-tuberculous mycobacteria) is rapidly evolving towards minimally invasive, precise, and stepwise approaches. The traditional three-stage classification (exudative, fibrinopurulent, and organizing) has limitations in guiding dynamic clinical decision-making. For the first time, this consensus explicitly identifies two critical junctures in the pathological progression of empyema: "early transformation" (stage Ⅰ to Ⅱ) and "late transformation" (stage Ⅱ to Ⅲ), and thereby constructs a corresponding "identification-early warning-intervention" stepwise therapeutic framework. The consensus emphasizes that proactive debridement via video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery should be performed during the early transformation phase to halt disease progression. Conversely, during the late transformation phase, therapeutic goals should be rationally adjusted to prioritize adequate drainage, avoiding futile pleural decortication. Moreover, the consensus underscores the pivotal role of precise perioperative etiological diagnosis [e.g metagenomic nest-generation sequencing (mNGS)] and standardized anti-infective therapy. Integrating practical experiences from multiple thoracic surgery centers in China and relevant evidence-based literature, this consensus formulates recommendations on the precise definitions of staging, surgical indications for each phase, key technical points, perioperative management, and training systems. It aims to promote the standardized and individualized surgical management of empyema, ultimately optimizing patient prognosis.