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Nov. 16th, 2004 02:53 pmOdd.
The thyroid is an endocrine gland just under the Adam's apple that controls the body's metabolic rate. When thyroid disease requires surgery to remove part or all of the gland, the result can be a prominent scar of 2 inches — often more — across the front of the throat.
It makes some patients self-conscious.
Because 80 percent of his patients are women, many of them young, Dr. Richard E. Goldstein, an endocrine surgeon in Louisville, was interested in learning a technique that results in a much smaller scar.
So in 2002 Goldstein worked with a team of surgeons in Italy who did an operation that leaves only a ½- to ¾-inch scar.
The operation that leaves the larger scar is an open thyroidectomy. The newer operation is called minimally invasive, video-assisted thyroidectomy.
The operation is only indicated for nodules less than 30mm at the largest part, and for thyroids with a smaller volume. I found a fascinating slideshow, which gave me an excellent view into what it must have looked like when I had my surgery.
The article also mentions a technique used in Japan that removes the thyroid through an incision in the armpit. That to me seems a bit invasive.
The thyroid is an endocrine gland just under the Adam's apple that controls the body's metabolic rate. When thyroid disease requires surgery to remove part or all of the gland, the result can be a prominent scar of 2 inches — often more — across the front of the throat.
It makes some patients self-conscious.
Because 80 percent of his patients are women, many of them young, Dr. Richard E. Goldstein, an endocrine surgeon in Louisville, was interested in learning a technique that results in a much smaller scar.
So in 2002 Goldstein worked with a team of surgeons in Italy who did an operation that leaves only a ½- to ¾-inch scar.
The operation that leaves the larger scar is an open thyroidectomy. The newer operation is called minimally invasive, video-assisted thyroidectomy.
The operation is only indicated for nodules less than 30mm at the largest part, and for thyroids with a smaller volume. I found a fascinating slideshow, which gave me an excellent view into what it must have looked like when I had my surgery.
The article also mentions a technique used in Japan that removes the thyroid through an incision in the armpit. That to me seems a bit invasive.
