Feasibility and safety of needle-assisted endoscopic thyroidectomy with lateral neck dissection for papillary thyroid carcinoma: a preliminary experience

Background Endoscopic thyroidectomy is popular among patients with cosmetic requirements. However, when lateral neck dissection (LND) is required, endoscopic surgery may be challenging. Therefore, we introduced needle-assisted endoscopic technique to achieve endoscopic LND procedure and evaluated its safety and feasibility in the present study. Methods Medical records of 37 patients who underwent needle-assisted endoscopic thyroidectomy with LND were retrospectively reviewed. Results All of 37 patients had excellent cosmetic outcomes. The mean operative time was 338.2 +/- 58.74 minutes. Mean number of lymph nodes retrieved in the lateral was 33.5 +/- 11.69 and 15.9 +/- 7.51 in the central neck. The rates of transient and permanent hypocalcemia were 32.4% and 2.7% and the rates of transient and permanent recurrent laryngeal nerve palsy were 8.1% and 0%, respectively. Conclusions Needle-assisted endoscopic thyroidectomy with lateral neck dissection shows potential feasibility but further study is needed to better characterize its safety and applicability.