Thyroid Surgery

There are nodules or goitroses that cause local symptoms such as tracheal compression, swallowing difficulty, visible or unsightly masses.

You have a nodule or goiter that causes symptoms due to excessive thyroid hormone production and release - toxic nodules, toxic multinodular goiter or Grave's disease

You and your thyroid surgeon should discuss the extent of thyroid surgery, it is usually classified as partial thyroidectomy or total thyroidectomy. Partial thyroidectomy is classified as follows.

Allogeneic resection - removal of the bridge of thyroid tissue between the two lungs; for small tumors located in the strait

Finally, all or almost all of the thyroidectomy is the resection of all or most of the thyroid tissue. (Figure 1)

Recommendations on the extent of thyroid surgery vary depending on the cause of surgery. For example, nodules that are confined to the side of the thyroid gland can be treated with thyroidectomy. If you are under evaluation of a large bilateral goiter or large thyroid carcinoma, total thyroidectomy may be recommended. However, the scope of surgery is both complex medical decisions and complex personal decisions to be made between your endocrinologists and surgeons.

When doing thyroid surgery, the patient needs to ask several questions about the following procedures.

Surgery The main treatment for all kinds of thyroid cancer is surgery (see the thyroid surgery handbook). The extent of surgery for differentiated thyroid cancer (cancer-associated lobectomy removal - total lung lobectomy or total thyroidectomy) depends on the size of the tumor and whether the tumor is confined to the thyroid gland. It may be discovered before surgery or surgery, such as when the tumor spreads to the surroundings or has obvious lymph nodes - indicating that total thyroidectomy is a better choice. Thyroid cancer occurs in cervical lymph nodes (lymph node metastasis) in some patients. These lymph nodes can be removed during the initial thyroid surgery. Alternatively, if lymph node metastasis is later revealed, it can be used as a follow up. Normally, thyroid cancer is cured only by surgery, especially when the cancer is small.

The most common cause of thyroid surgery is the thyroid nodule or tumor. Most nodules are benign, but some are cancerous or precancerous. Even a benign nodule may cause problems if it is long enough to block the throat or stimulate the thyroid gland to produce hormones (a condition known as hyperthyroidism). Surgery can correct hyperthyroidism. Hyperthyroidism is the result of an autoimmune disease often called Graves' disease. Graves' disease causes the body to misidentify the thyroid as a foreign body and send the antibody to attack the thyroid gland. These antibodies cause thyroid inflammation and cause excessive hormone production.