Researchers followed reflux (GERD) patients for 5 years, comparing those who had anti-reflux surgery to those who stayed on daily acid-reducing medication. By year 5, 87% of surgery patients had their reflux well controlled, compared to only 56% of those on medication alone — and surgery patients reported a noticeably better quality of life.
A multicentre RCT confirmed that laparoscopic fundoplication achieves durable symptom control superior to proton pump inhibitor therapy at 5 years, with 87% of surgical patients in remission vs. 56% on optimized PPI. Quality of life measures significantly favoured the surgical group.
For patients with both obesity and reflux, surgeons compared standard weight-loss surgery (sleeve gastrectomy) to a modified version that also adds a small reflux-prevention wrap (“Sleeve Nissen”). Three years later, both groups had lost the same amount of weight, but patients who had the modified version were far less likely to develop new reflux afterward — 5% versus 28%.
Prospective cohort data confirmed equivalent excess weight loss at 36 months between the Sleeve Nissen and standard sleeve gastrectomy, while the Sleeve Nissen group demonstrated significantly lower rates of de novo GERD (5% vs. 28%) and need for post-operative anti-reflux medication.
Surgeons compared two ways of removing part of the esophagus for cancer in over 420 patients: a robotic approach and a standard camera-based (VATS) approach. The robotic group had about half the rate of leaks at the new surgical connection (a serious complication), spent less time in intensive care, and had just as thorough a cancer removal as the standard approach.
A propensity-matched analysis of 420 patients found robotic esophagectomy was associated with reduced anastomotic leak rates (6.2% vs. 11.4%), shorter ICU stay, and equivalent oncologic lymph node yield compared to conventional VATS-MIE, supporting the shift toward robotic platforms at high-volume centres.
In patients with esophageal cancer that can be surgically removed, adding an immunotherapy drug to chemotherapy before surgery increased the number of patients whose tumour was completely gone by the time of surgery, to 24%. This supports treating esophageal cancer as a team effort between oncologists and surgeons, giving the best combination of treatments before the operation.
Updated data from the CheckMate 577 and KEYNOTE trials reinforced the survival benefit of adding immunotherapy to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in locally advanced esophageal cancer, with pathologic complete response rates improving to 24%. Findings continue to shape multidisciplinary pre-surgical protocols.
For small lung cancers under 2 cm found near the outer edge of the lung, this large, long-running trial compared removing just the affected segment of lung versus removing the entire lobe (the traditional approach). Ten years later, patients who had the smaller, lung-sparing operation were slightly more likely to still be alive — 92% versus 85%. This has shifted the standard of care toward preserving more healthy lung tissue whenever it’s safe to do so.
Long-term follow-up of the landmark JCOG0802 trial confirmed that segmentectomy provides superior overall survival compared to lobectomy for peripheral NSCLC ≤2 cm (10-year OS 92.4% vs. 85.1%), validating the shift toward lung-preserving resection for early-stage disease.
Looking at national data from more than 12,000 lung surgery patients, researchers found that those who had robotic lung removal left the hospital sooner, were readmitted less often, and needed to be switched to open surgery less often than those who had standard keyhole (VATS) surgery — with no difference in survival.
Analysis of over 12,000 cases demonstrated robotic lobectomy was associated with shorter length of stay, lower 30-day readmission rates, and reduced conversion to open thoracotomy compared to VATS, with no difference in 90-day mortality — validating robotic surgery as the preferred minimally invasive platform for lung resection.