Persistent shortness of breath, chest pain or a lasting cough can indicate a serious thoracic condition and require prompt medical assessment, whatever their apparent cause. When surgery is the appropriate option, thoracic surgery (chest surgery) can remove a tumor, drain or repair the pleura, or treat disorders of the lung, pleura, trachea and esophagus, and in Turkey it is performed by specialized thoracic surgeons in accredited hospitals, often using minimally invasive techniques.
Thoracic surgery in Turkey : Expert care at competitive prices
Our partner hospitals in Turkey are selected for their accreditation and provide patients undergoing thoracic surgery with high standards of care throughout their treatment, both in and out of the operating room. Accreditation and the surgeon's experience should still be verified for each clinic.
The price of thoracic surgery varies significantly depending on the specific procedure, its complexity, your medical condition, the duration of hospital stay, and the chosen hospital. The ranges below are indicative and very broad estimates for common procedures, from $5,000 to $20,000 USD, with some complex lung cancer surgeries potentially reaching up to $30,000 USD. The estimate typically includes consultations, the surgical procedure, and initial follow-up care. It may not include extensive post-operative rehabilitation, additional treatments like chemotherapy, or long-term medications. Other items, such as anesthesia, the length of the hospital stay and tests, vary from one clinic to another. A detailed, personalized quote provided after review of your medical file is the only reliable figure, so ask for an itemized quote and check what is and is not included.
Contact Turquie Santé today to evaluate your case and receive a personalized treatment plan and quote. Start your journey toward thoracic surgery in Turkey.
Risks and Side Effects
Risks depend on the procedure (lung resection, esophageal surgery, chest wall or mediastinal surgery),the extent of the operation and your general health. The figures below mainly concern lobectomy and other lung resections. They come from published series that differ in methods and definitions, so they are indicative and not a promise for your case.
- Complications related to anesthesia, including breathing problems and abnormal heart rhythms.
- Infections: in a prospective series of 1,091 lung resections, wound infection occurred in 3.2% of patients, pneumonia in 8.3% and empyema (infection of the pleural space) in 1.9%, with overall infection rates of 4.8% after wedge resection, 17.4% after lobectomy and 35% after pneumonectomy (Surgical site infections after lung resection, Journal of Thoracic Disease, 2017). In another series, surgical site infection occurred in 7.1% of open thoracic operations versus 2.1% of video-assisted operations (Surgical site infections in thoracic surgery, Journal of Infection in Developing Countries, 2019). Diabetes, long-term corticosteroids and previous chemotherapy or radiotherapy increase the risk.
- Bleeding, which may require a transfusion or, rarely, a further operation.
- Blood clots (deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism).
- Air leak and pneumothorax (collapsed lung): a small air leak after lung surgery is common and usually closes on its own, but a prolonged leak (more than 5 to 7 days) was reported in roughly 8% to 19% of lobectomy patients depending on the series and the surgical approach. It may require a longer stay with a chest drain or a further procedure.
- Atrial fibrillation (irregular heart rhythm): reported in roughly 9% to 21% of lobectomy patients depending on the series and the approach (Society of Thoracic Surgeons data; Villamizar et al., Thoracoscopic lobectomy is associated with lower morbidity compared with thoracotomy, Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, 2009). It is usually treated with medication.
- Pleural effusion (fluid around the lung),which may need drainage.
- Other pulmonary complications: areas of collapsed lung (atelectasis, about 5% to 12% in one series),pneumonia (about 5% to 10% in the same series) and, in severe cases, respiratory failure or acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS),sometimes requiring prolonged mechanical ventilation.
- Bronchopleural fistula (a leak between the bronchus and the pleural space): reported in under 1% to about 2% of patients after lobectomy and in about 4% to 20% after pneumonectomy (Prevalence and treatment outcome of bronchopleural fistula: a multi-center study in Ethiopia, Journal of Cardiothoracic Surgery, 2023). It can be serious and may require drainage or a further operation.
- Persistent pain at the incision site (chronic post-surgical pain): a meta-analysis of prospective studies found pain still present in 57% of patients 3 months and 47% 6 months after open thoracotomy (Bayman and Brennan, Journal of Pain, 2014). Rates are lower after minimally invasive surgery but remain significant and vary between studies: about 4% (versus 19% after thoracotomy) in a retrospective series of 259 patients (Revista Española de Anestesiología y Reanimación, 2024) and about 25% to 35% in other series. A randomized trial of 503 patients found less pain up to one year with minimally invasive surgery (VIOLET trial, Lancet Respiratory Medicine, 2022). Pain is managed with painkillers and regional anesthesia techniques, and persistent pain should be reported to your medical team.
- Wound complications other than infection, such as reopening of the wound or a scar that heals poorly.
- Nerve injury: hoarseness caused by injury to the left recurrent laryngeal nerve, usually during lymph node dissection near the aortic arch, was reported in about 10% of left-sided lung cancer operations in one series cited in a review (Fourdrain et al.). Injury to the phrenic nerve can paralyze the diaphragm and cause breathlessness; it mainly occurs when the nerve has to be sacrificed to remove a tumor, which was the case in 142 of 24,527 operations for lung cancer or mediastinal tumors, about 0.6% (Interactive CardioVascular and Thoracic Surgery, 2025). After esophagectomy, vocal cord paralysis was found by laryngoscopy in about 60% of 299 patients in one series, and about 62% of the affected nerves recovered within 12 months.
- Injury to neighboring structures (heart, large vessels, esophagus, trachea),which is rare.
- Recurrence of the cancer treated (risk of recurrence): even after a successful operation, the cancer can come back, either in the chest (local recurrence) or elsewhere in the body (distant recurrence or metastases),and a new, separate cancer can also appear. Surgery is therefore not always a definitive cure. For lung cancer, in an analysis of 497 patients with completely resected stage I or II non-small cell lung cancer in the National Lung Screening Trial (Recurrence After Complete Resection for Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer in the National Lung Screening Trial),the cumulative incidence of recurrence at 5 years was about 20%, most recurrences were distant, and the median time to recurrence was about 19 months. Other series report recurrence in about 20% to 40% of patients at 5 years after resection of early-stage disease (Factors influencing recurrence following anatomic lung resection for clinical stage I non-small cell lung cancer),with higher rates in more advanced stages. Five-year survival after complete resection is reported at roughly 60% to 90% for stage I, 30% to 70% for stage II and 10% to 30% for selected stage III disease. For other thoracic cancers (esophagus, pleura, thymus),recurrence rates are different and depend on the tumor type and stage, and your oncology team will give you the figures that apply to your case. If the cancer returns, the options depend on the type of recurrence and on your health, and may include further surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, targeted therapy or immunotherapy. Regular long-term follow-up is essential to detect a recurrence early, when treatment may still be possible: guidelines such as those of the NCCN recommend follow-up visits every 6 months for the first two years and then yearly up to year 5, usually with chest imaging, while a randomized trial of 1,775 patients (IFCT-0302, presented at ESMO 2017) found no survival difference between minimal and CT-based follow-up. Your team will therefore define the schedule suited to your case.
- Death: operative mortality after lobectomy is reported at roughly 1% to 3% (about 1.4% in the Society of Thoracic Surgeons database, 2.6% in a National Cancer Database analysis by Rosen et al., and 1.06% among 21,150 lung resections in a US hospital database, Yoo et al., ClinicoEconomics and Outcomes Research, 2017). It is higher after pneumonectomy, in patients with severe lung or heart disease and in the other situations listed in the contraindications below. The risk is lower in patients without significant comorbidities: in a series of 1,763 minimally invasive lobectomies for lung cancer (mean age 59),mortality was 0.3% and major complications occurred in 7.3%, with age 70 or over and comorbidities among the predictors of major complications (International Journal of Medical Sciences, 2014). In a Danish series of 1,379 lobectomies, 30-day mortality was 1% with minimally invasive surgery and 1.5% with open surgery (European Journal of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery, 2016).
Contraindications and situations requiring caution: surgery may not be advisable, or may need to be postponed, in the following situations, which are associated with a higher operative mortality and a higher risk of complications and are therefore weighed carefully in the decision to operate.
- Severe or unstable heart disease (including a recent heart attack),because anesthesia and surgery put a strain on the heart.
- Severely reduced lung function or severe uncompensated respiratory failure: if the predicted postoperative FEV1 or DLCO falls below roughly 30% to 40% of normal, too little functional lung would remain, and further assessment (exercise tests) is needed before any major lung resection, which may be ruled out (ERS/ESTS guidelines on fitness for radical therapy in lung cancer patients, European Respiratory Journal, 2009).
- Uncontrolled infection, a severe bleeding disorder or clotting problem that is not controlled, or end-stage kidney failure that is not managed with dialysis.
- A very poor general condition (low performance status) that would not allow a major operation to be tolerated, or a disease that is too advanced to benefit from an operation.
Other factors increase the risk without necessarily ruling out surgery. Older age is associated with more complications (age 70 or over was a predictor of major complications after minimally invasive lobectomy),but age alone is not a contraindication: in a study of octogenarians undergoing lobectomy, comorbidities and reduced functional status predicted complications better than age itself. Obesity did not increase major complications or mortality after lung resection in several studies, but it can increase wound infections and minor wound complications and lengthen the operation, whereas being underweight or malnourished is associated with a higher risk of complications and early death, particularly in older patients. Smoking impairs wound healing and increases lung complications. Your surgical team assesses the risks and benefits for each patient, and may recommend another treatment or postpone surgery until your condition has been optimized. This decision is made after a full evaluation, ideally in a multidisciplinary meeting.
