Thoracosopic surgery was first introduced in the early 1900s, but advances in the last 20 years have dramatically altered how pulmonary and extrapulmonary thoracic lesions in infants and children are now approached. Advances in equipment and technique now allow for most common thoracic surgeries to be approached through a series of small 3 and 5 mm incisions, using a telescope and digital camera to provide magnified images of the thoracic cavity. Large series of relatively simple procedures such as lung biopsy, and more complex operations such as lobectomy have clearly shown that these techniques are safe and effective, and associated with significantly less morbidity then the standard open thoracotomy.
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