Asian perspective in surgery: thoracic surgery in Turkey

Turkey with a population of 78 million is located between Asia and Europe geographically and culturally. There are 577 active pure thoracic surgeon and 37 thoracic surgery teaching units. Thoracic surgeons usually deal with lung cancer patients due to relatively higher rate of tobacco usage as well as inflammatory diseases such as pulmonary hydatid disease, bronchiectasis and empyema. Minimally invasive thoracic surgery has been a new approach which is being adapted by increasingly more surgeons. There are a number of reasons to predict that the number of thoracic surgical cases will be increased and new generation of thoracic surgeons will be operating more minimally invasive resectional surgeries for most lung cancer in future.