Background: Minimally invasive surgeries for non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLCs) such as video-assisted thoracoscopic surgeries (VATSs) and robotic-assisted thoracoscopic surgeries (RATSs) have become standard of care for patients needing surgical resection in early stages. The role for neoadjuvant systemic therapy has increased with patients receiving neoadjuvant systemic chemotherapy and immunotherapy. However, there has been some equipoise over the intraoperative and overall outcomes for these patients. Here, we review the current data regarding outcomes of patients undergoing minimally invasive thoracic surgical resection after systemic chemotherapy, immunotherapy, or both. Methods: A systematic literature review of randomized controlled trials and observational studies presenting data on patients with NSCLC that underwent neoadjuvant systemic therapy followed by minimally invasive surgery was performed assessing complications, conversion rates, and lymph node yield. Results: Our search strategy and review of references resulted in 239 publications to screen with 88 full texts assessed and 21 studies included in our final review. VATS had a statistically significant higher lymph node yield in five studies. The reported conversion rates ranged from 0 to 54%. Dense adhesions, bleeding, and difficult anatomy were the most common reported reasons for conversion to open surgeries. The most common complications between both groups were prolonged air leak, arrythmia, and pneumonia. VATS was found to have significantly fewer complications in three papers. Conclusions: The current literature supports VATS as safe and feasible for patients with NSCLC after neoadjuvant systemic treatment. Surgeons should remain prepared to convert to open surgeries in those patients with dense adhesions and bleeding risk.

Background: No widely used stratification tool exists to predict which pediatric trauma patients may require a video‐assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS). We sought to develop a novel VATS‐In‐Pediatrics (VIP) score to predict the need for early VATS (within 72 h of admission) for pediatric trauma patients.Methods: The pediatric 2017–2020 Trauma Quality Improvement Program database was used and divided into two sets (derivation set using 2017–2019 data and validation set using 2020 data). First, multiple logistic regression models were created to determine the risk of early VATS for patients ≤ 17 years old. Second, the weighted average and relative impact of each independent predictor were used to derive a VIP score. We then validated the score using the area under the receiver operating characteristic (AROC) curve.Results: From 218,628 patients in the derivation set, 2183 (1.0%) underwent early VATS. A total of 8 independent predictors of VATS were identified, and the VIP score was derived with scores ranging from 0 to 9. The AROC for this was 0.91. The VATS rate increased steadily from 12.5 to 32% then 60.5% at scores of 3, 4, and 6, respectively. In the validation set, from 70,316 patients, 887 (1.3%) underwent VATS, and the AROC was 0.91.Conclusions: VIP is a novel and validated scoring tool to predict the need for early VATS in pediatric trauma. This tool can potentially help hospital systems prepare for pediatric patients at high risk for requiring VATS during their first 72 h of admission. Future prospective research is needed to evaluate VIP as a tool that can improve clinical outcomes.