Doctor Diego González Rivas has performed El Salvador’s first lung cancer surgery following immunotherapy treatment, a milestone for thoracic oncology in the country achieved as part of a new international surgical mission by the Fundación Diego González Rivas. The procedure, carried out on Saturday, August 22, positions the Instituto Salvadoreño del Seguro Social (ISSS) among the region’s reference centres for minimally invasive thoracic surgery.
The day, held at the ISSS’s surgical oncology centre in collaboration with the Foundation, opened with a particularly demanding case, a bronchial resection of the right lung that ran into complications from the very start of the approach. The ISSS surgical team resolved the setback without losing its footing, and the patient came through the operation breathing normally, an outcome Doctor Diego himself called spectacular.
The mission also carried a personal dimension. Waiting at the Salvadoran hospital was Alonso, a surgeon trained by Doctor Diego himself in the Uniportal VATS technique, first in A Coruña and later in Shanghai, who today practises it independently in El Salvador. The reunion between mentor and former trainee, now a colleague in his own right, captured in a few minutes the deeper purpose of the Foundation, training surgeons able to sustain access to minimally invasive surgery long after the visiting team has gone home.
The session, conceived as a masterclass, closed with a right lower lobectomy performed on a patient who had received chemotherapy and immunotherapy prior to surgery, the first procedure of its kind carried out in El Salvador. It is an especially delicate operation, since prior treatment hardens the tissue and complicates dissection, yet the team handled it with the same composure Doctor Diego brings to the most complex cases across the more than 140 countries where he has operated.
“It’s a day to remember, because nothing is impossible,” said Doctor Diego at the close of the session, echoing the motto that gives meaning to every mission the Foundation undertakes. This intervention in El Salvador joins the roster of international hospital missions the Fundación Diego González Rivas carries out around the world, with Doctor Diego travelling to operate alongside the partner hospital’s own team, without the need to deploy the Mobile Surgical Unit. With this latest visit to Central America, the Foundation reinforces its commitment to bringing advanced thoracic surgery to patients who, whether for reasons of geography or resources, have fewer opportunities to access it, and to leaving behind, in every country, a local team capable of carrying the work forward.
El Salvador is just one stop in an extraordinary August for Doctor Diego, who has already operated in seven countries across four continents in a single month. And the schedule shows no sign of slowing, the Foundation’s next missions are already set for Syria, Chad and Sierra Leone, where minimally invasive thoracic surgery remains, for many patients, the only door open to treatment they would otherwise never be able to reach.
