The thyroid gland is an important endocrine organ in the neck of the body. The incidence of thyroid disorders has been increasing year by year in recent years and is especially common in women. Many thyroid disorders such as thyroid adenoma, thyroid cancer, and nodular goiter require surgery to cure, which inevitably leaves indelible scars on the neck, adding to the worries of women who love beauty and have a fear of surgery, often delaying treatment. However, with the continuous development of medical technology and the continuous efforts of thyroid surgeons, the incision of thyroid surgery has undergone the development of “large incision” – “small incision” – “mini incision”. The history of thyroid surgery has been to satisfy women’s cosmetic desires. The laryngeal nerve is a small nerve located behind the thyroid gland that governs the movement of the vocal cords, and after injury, patients will experience hoarseness and difficulty in pronunciation. When thyroid surgery was carried out in the 1970s, due to limited knowledge of thyroid anatomy, it was often necessary to communicate with the patient during surgery to determine whether the patient could pronounce and whether the nerve was damaged, so anesthesia was often chosen to block anesthesia in the cervical region. Under such conditions, the incision for thyroid surgery must be large enough to fully expose the patient for the surgeon’s operation. Therefore, even if the tumor is not large, a “large incision” scar of 8-250px is often left in the neck after surgery. 2. With the rapid development of medical technology and the surgeon’s understanding of the anatomy of thyroid surgery, the degree of refinement of thyroid surgery is getting higher and higher.
The degree of refinement of thyroid surgery is getting higher and higher. In the 21st century, general anesthesia has been gradually chosen for thyroid surgery, allowing patients to spend the surgery more comfortably, while at the same time requiring a higher level of skill for the surgeon. With the advent of advanced medical devices such as the ultrasonic knife, surgeons use the ultrasonic knife to perform thyroid surgery without tying knots and ligating blood vessels, so, combined with a good state of anesthesia, only a small exposure space is needed to complete the surgical removal of the thyroid gland. Therefore, for skilled thyroid surgeons, except for individual cases with huge tumors, general thyroid surgery only requires a 3-125px Therefore, for a skilled thyroid surgeon, unless individual cases of huge tumor, general thyroid surgery can be completed with a “small incision” of only 3-125px (see figure). 3. Beauty is endless. With the rapid development of science and technology, can thyroid surgery incisions be smaller? Can it become incisionless in the neck? The development of minimally invasive lumpectomy technology has solved these problems. With many body surgeries relying on lumpectomy, thyroid surgery also relies on lumpectomy to achieve a “mini-incision”. There are two types of lumpectomies commonly used for thyroid surgery: one is a low-collared “mini-incision” of 1-37.5 px in the neck, where the surgeon uses micro-instruments and an ultrasonic knife to enter the incision and operate in a small space to remove the tumor with the aid of a lumpectomy. Another lumpectomy method is to take three incisions of about 12.5 px at the level of the nipple in front of the chest and remove the thyroid tumor in the neck through the remote tunnel method. For young women, it increases their confidence. Of course, either the “small incision” or the “mini incision” requires a professional and skilled thyroid surgeon and a hospital with a thyroid specialist like Nanjing Gulou Hospital.