Lung removalIn 1933, the first operation to remove a lung was performed at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri by Dr. Evarts Ambrose Graham. He was operating on a fellow physician with lung cancer. Until then, removal of a lobe of a lung was occasionally done to treat lung cancer, if the tumour was limited to one lobe. When exploration revealed this patient's cancer involved more than one lobe, he removed the entire lung. Seven ribs were removed to permit the soft tissues of the chest wall to fill the resulting cavity. The patient recovered and was cured of the disease. This was a triumph for the era that electrified the surgical world. Graham devoted many years to the study of lung cancer and its link to cigarette smoking.* |
