On Tuesday, surgeons from the Thoracic Surgery Department of the Da Nang General Hospital successfully performed endoscopic surgery to remove a tumour on the left upper lung lobe of 59-year-old Pham Thi Nua from Quang Nam Province’s Thang Binh District.

Earlier, the patient had been admitted to the hospital due to persistent coughing up of blood.  With the help of a CT scan, the doctors detected a 2.5cm x 2.7cm malignant tumour on the left upper lobe of the patient’s lungs.  Then Mrs Nua was scanned with the Positron emission tomography- computed tomography (better known as PET-CT or PET/CT).  This was one of the first PET/CT scanning cases to be conducted at the hospital.  The doctors decided to perform an immediate endoscopic operation to remove the tumour and lymph nodes around the hilum of the lung.  This was the first time that this type of surgical technique had been carried out in the central region.

The operation took around two-and-a-half hours.  The patient is now recovering, and she is able to eat and drink normally.  She is expected to be discharged from the hospital in the next few days.