Ligasure Assisted Total Thyroidectomy

Total thyroidectomy is indicated for large, toxic or malignant lesions and has many intraoperative and postoperative complications. The thyroid is a highly vascularized gland, and one of the most common surgical complications is blood loss. This is why hemostasis plays a major role in the outcome of the surgery. Other postoperative complications are dysphonia, dysphagia caused by recurrent and, or superior laryngeal nerve injury, hypocalcaemia due to parathyroid ischemia, pain and infections. Due to technological improvement new devices were developed for reducing surgical time, for better coagulation, increasing precision and less postoperative complications. LigaSure technology is a vessel sealing system that has been used in recent years in thyroid surgery. The LigaSure creates a seal using electrothermal energy that changes the vessel wall structure, making possible hemostasis in vessels up to 7mm. In this paper, we aim to present the case of a patient diagnosed with thyroid cancer and treated with total thyroidectomy and radioactive iodine ablation that was admitted to our clinic with a recurrence of the thyroidtumour. For this surgery, we used LigaSure system for saving surgical time and reducing postoperative complications. We concluded that this technology proved to be safe, led to a shorter surgical time, less haemorrhage, bettervisualisation of the surgical field and a faster recovery of the patient.