Newer Techniques in Thyroid Surgery
Thyroid surgery is a common procedure done by most surgeons .The history of similar surgery dates back to more than 100 years and conventionally it is done by a horizontal neck incision. Thyroid diseases are more common in younger females. Though conventional these procedures often leave prominent and visible scars on the neck. Some patients also report varying degrees of neck stiffness after the operation.
With the advent of minimally invasive surgery of late, thyroid surgery has also benefited from this advancement.
The principle behind the success of minimally invasive thyroid surgery is that it avoids a neck scar which is cosmetically appealing and also does not interfere with the functional aspect of the neck following surgery.
Many routes of access other than the neck to the thyroid gland have been described but the best results over the years have been achieved with an axilliary route. By this method, three small incisions are made in the region of the axilla and the outer chest wall and the thyroid is approached through this. The biggest boon of this type of surgery is that there are no visible scars in the neck. The small scars are totally hidden.
In our hands this procedure has given very good results and excellent patient acceptance.
Our most recent advancement in this field is to approach the thyroid through the oral cavity .There is zero scarring with this procedure leaving virtually no sign of a surgical procedure being done.
We would also like to state that all thyroid surgeries cannot be done by the above mentioned techniques and this has to be planned on a patient to patient basis.