LAUSR

We appreciate the thoughtful and constructive comments by Dr. Wael C. Hanna from Canada (1) and Dr. Abbas E. Abbas from America (2) on our article “ Robotic Assisted Right Middle Lobectomy ”. In this article, we described our experience with robotic assisted right middle lobectomy through a specific case (3). As both Dr. Hanna and Dr. Abbas mentioned in their insightful comments, they preferred to line up all of the robotic ports in the same intercostal space (8 th intercostal space) to minimize postoperative pain. In robot-assisted thoracic surgery, the incision positions are flexible and their placement primarily depends on the practice and preference of the surgeon. Many surgeons place the ports in multiple locations in the intercostal space (4-6). Another important factor that we could not ignore is racial difference. Caucasians have wider chests than Chinese; the Chinese chest surface is 93% of the chest surface of Caucasians (7).