How to Choose the Right Thyroid Surgery for You Thyroid lesions are a common disease in the human body, and their incidence has increased significantly with modern lifestyle changes and advances in screening methods. When medication is ineffective, some patients need to undergo surgery. How to choose the right surgery for yourself? Please listen to the experts to analyze. At present, thyroid surgery mainly includes two types of surgery: open and lumpectomy, and there are different choices for different diseases and different groups of people. First of all, let’s learn about the surgical methods. 1.Open thyroid surgery Open thyroid surgery is thyroidectomy through neck incision. Due to the direct incision, small trauma of internal separation, short operation time and high safety, it is still the surgical method adopted by most surgeons. In particular, the introduction of the ultrasonic scalpel has made the procedure minimally invasive, with virtually invisible intraoperative bleeding and without the need for routine indwelling drains. Nowadays, all open surgical incisions are made with subcutaneous cosmetic sutures, which do not need to be removed, and most of the neck scars fade away after 1 year, giving a more satisfactory appearance. However, due to the cut off of the cervical cutaneous nerve during the operation, some patients may still have numbness, discomfort and other sensations around the incision. Luminal Thyroid Surgery Luminal Thyroid Surgery adopts the way of cavity mirror to remove the thyroid lesion through the incision in front of the sternum, areola, armpit and even inside the mouth, so that the surgical scar can not be seen in the exposed part of the neck. Lumpectomy has a small and hidden external incision, but the trauma of the separation inside the body is large, the operation takes longer, and there is slightly more bleeding. Because of the large area of subcutaneous release, some patients experience localized tugging sensations after surgery. After understanding the surgical method, let’s analyze the advantages and disadvantages of the two types of surgery and the applicable population: 1. Are there any contraindications to surgery? Open: no. Lumpectomy: Yes. With the continuous maturation of the technology, laparoscopic thyroid surgery has been gradually popularized, but not all thyroid lesions are suitable for resection using the laparoscopic method. Although some centers have extended the indications for surgery to patients with larger benign nodules and low-grade malignant thyroid cancer, it is still in the exploratory stage, and it is still a relative no-go area for laparoscopic surgery for patients with previous history of neck surgery or radiotherapy, hyperthyroidism, retrosternal goiter, inflammatory thyroid lesions, and patients with locally invasive or metastatic thyroid cancer. 2.Is the surgery minimally invasive? Open: non-minimally invasive external incision, minimally invasive internal operation, less bleeding, small trauma surface. The patient recovers quickly after surgery and feels little discomfort. Lumpectomy: The incision is small and hidden, with cosmetic function. The internal operation has a large traumatic surface, more bleeding, slower postoperative recovery of the patient, a larger range of discomfort, and less minimally invasive. 3, the operation is applicable to the crowd Open: all people Lumpectomy: special people with high requirements for beauty, such as public figures, young women who love beauty. To summarize: open surgery has its traditional advantages, but the cosmetic efficacy is still insufficient. Lumpectomy is not strictly considered minimally invasive, but only cosmetic surgery, and there are certain prohibited areas. Therefore, for the majority of patients, we do not routinely recommend laparoscopic thyroid surgery, but only as an additional option for special populations with high cosmetic requirements for reference. At present, foreign countries have gradually carried out robot-assisted thyroid surgery, its precise imaging effect and stable, fine operation mode can minimize unnecessary damage and bleeding during the operation, while taking into account the effect of cosmetic, which is truly minimally invasive surgery. However, this technology has not yet been popularized in China, and it is believed that in the near future, robot-assisted thyroid surgery will bring the gospel to the majority of thyroid surgery patients.