BILATERAL THORACOSCOPIC LOWER SYMPATHETIC-SPLANCHNICECTOMY FOR UPPER ABDOMINAL CANCER PAIN

Upper abdominal pain secondary to cancer may cause great disability to patients. Surgical sympathetic-splanchnicectomy, or coeliac plexus bl ock, has been used to relieve intractable upper abdominal cancer pain from stomach, liver, gallbladder or pancreas for a long time. There ar e, however, intrinsic disadvantages when performing these procedures. Due to our long experience of therapeutic thoracoscopy, we recently pe rformed bilateral thoracoscopic sympathetic-splanchnicectomy on 14 pat ients (eight male and six female) for relief of pain from primary or m etastatic upper abdominal cancers. Most of them were satisfied with th e immediate pain relief after the operation. In this new era of therap eutic endoscopy, endoscopic surgery will gradually take the place of o pen methods in treatment of many diseases. It can be anticipated that thoracoscopic lower sympathetic-splanchnicectomy is undoubtedly a good alternative method for management of intractable upper abdominal pain .