Minimally invasive video-assisted lateral neck lymphadenectomy for the papillary thyroid carcinoma with cervical lymph nodes metastasis

Objective: Minimally invasive video-assisted technique has been successfully used in thyroidectomy to treat low-and intermediate-risk papillary thyroid cancer. But there was very little experience of this technique to be used in the lateral neck lymphadenectomy to treat papillary thyroid cancer with lateral neck lymph node metastasis. This study aimed to verify the potential benefits of a new minimally invasive video-assisted lateral neck lymphadenectomy that evaluated the likelihood of the surgical method as an alternative for thyroid carcinoma with lateral lymph node metastasis. Method: A total of 58 patients were retrospectively compared, which included two groups: Following thyroidectomy and the central neck node dissection (level VI), the first group underwent the conventional lateral neck lymphadenectomy and the other group underwent video-assisted lateral neck lymphadenectomy. In addition to the comparison of treatment outcomes between the new treatment and the conventional one, other parameters including operative time, length of incision, operative hemorrhage, postoperative drainage, length and costs of hospitalization were also compared. Results: Patients who received the new surgical method had significantly shorter incisional length, lower incidence of local skin paresthesia and shorter length of hospitalization when compared to the conventional treatment. Conclusions: Compared with the conventional lateral neck lymphadenectomy for cN1b-stage papillary thyroid carcinoma, the new minimally invasive video-assisted lateral neck lymphadenectomy is a feasible and safe alternative for treatment of thyroid carcinoma with cervical lymph node metastases since it has the advantages of less postoperative complications and better cosmetic outcome.