Progress and Controversy of Endoscopic Thyroid Cancer Surgery

Abstract

With the rapid development of endoscopic techniques, endoscopic thyroid surgery has gradually become a new research focus due to the tiny neck scar, invisible surgical incision, etc.. However, because of the unclear indications of endoscopic thyroid surgery, difficult lymph node dissection in lateral neck, etc., there are different opinions about whether endoscopic thyroid surgery can cure thyroid cancer or not. After reviewing the related literatures, this paper discusses the indications and disputations of endoscopic thyroid cancer surgery, puts forward the countermeasures to avoid the risk and provides rationalization proposals for their future trends.

Keywords

• endoscopic surgery
• thyroid cancer
• lymph node dissection