A big picture focus on minimally invasive thymic surgery

This special issue of the journal Mediastinum is focused on minimally invasive surgical approaches for thymectomy. There is no question that surgery in general is being transformed from the traditional large open incisions to less invasive approaches. This is true for mediastinal disease as well, although one can argue that the published literature on this topic is well behind that on minimally invasive lobectomy or esophagectomy. This is probably due to the fact that thymic hyperplasia and tumors are much less common than lung or esophageal tumors.