Aims: Endoscopic thyroidectomy (ET) using the breast approach and conventional open thyroidectomy (OT) are effective approaches to treating thyroid tumors. This study evaluates the effectiveness of ET and OT regarding safety, cosmetic effects, and feasibility.
Subjects and methods: Four hundred and fifty-six patients who underwent thyroidectomy in our department from January 2019 to August 2020 were included in this study. Based on the intraoperative rapid pathology, all patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma underwent unilateral thyroid lobectomy and central neck lymph node dissection. Whereas all benign patients underwent unilateral thyroid lobectomy. Differences in various factors such as clinical characteristics, operation time, postoperative drainage volume, parathyroid hormone (PTH) levels, calcium (Ca) levels, total number of central lymph nodes resected, the number of metastatic central lymph nodes resected, hospital duration, hospitalization costs, and cosmetic effects were compared in each group.
Results: Baseline characteristics among the four groups were similar, except for patient age and tumor size. Patients in the malignant ET group were younger than those in the malignant OT group with smaller tumors (P < 0.05). There were no significant differences between the OT and ET groups in postoperative Ca levels, PTH levels, the total number of lymph nodes resected, and the number of metastatic central lymph nodes resected.
Conclusions: Compared with conventional OT, ET is a feasible, practical, and safe procedure with excellent cosmetic benefits.
Keywords: Conventional open thyroidectomy; cosmetology; endoscopic thyroidectomy through breast approach; feasibility; safety.