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The Journal of Cardiovascular Surgery 2000 October;41(5):791-2

Copyright © 2009 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Endoscopic resection of thyroid tumors by the axillary approach

Ikeda Y., Takami H., Sasaki Y., Kan S., Niimi M.

From the First Department of Surgery Teikyo University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan

One of the prob­lems of sur­gery in the ­neck is ­the scar. Endoscopic sur­gery has recent­ly ­been ­applied to cer­vi­cal explo­ra­tion and the ­scars of the ­neck are ­small and incon­spic­u­ous, but a few ­patients ­still com­plain of it. For ­this rea­son, we devel­oped a tech­nique of endo­scop­ic resec­tion of thy­roid ­tumors ­using an axil­lary ­approach. This ­approach ­does not ­leave a ­scar on the ­neck or the ­chest, and the ­small ­scar in the axil­la is com­plete­ly cov­ered by the ­patient’s arm in a nat­u­ral man­ner. Furthermore, the com­pli­ca­tions ­such as hyper­cap­nia, res­pir­a­to­ry aci­do­sis, sub­cu­ta­ne­ous empy­se­ma, ­air embo­lism and sen­so­ry ­loss in the ­neck ­region are min­i­mized, ­because the work­ing sur­gi­cal ­space is ­small and pro­ce­dures can be per­formed ­with CO2 insuf­fla­tion lev­els bel­ow 4 mmHg. We ­believe ­that endo­scop­ic sur­gery by the axil­lary ­approach ­will ­find a ­role in the treat­ment of thy­roid ­tumors.