Comparison of Transoral Endoscopic Thyroidectomy Vestibular Approach and Conventional Open Thyroidectomy in Benign Thyroid Tumors

Conventional open thyroidectomy remains the standard treatment of surgery for benign thyroid tumors but leaves a permanent scar in the neck. We conducted this study to compare the surgical outcomes of transoral endoscopic thyroidectomy vestibular approach (TOETVA) versus conventional open thyroidectomy (COT), and thence analyze the safety and viability of this approach. Seventy-eight patients who had undergone either COT or TOETVA from 2020 to 2021 in our institution to treat benign thyroid tumors were prospectively studied. Outcomes between the two groups were analyzed, including time of operation, blood loss, hospital stay, postoperative complications, and level of satisfaction. A total of 78 patients, in which TOETVA was applied to 47 patients and COT thyroid surgery was applied to 31 patients, participated in this study. COT has a shorter operative time (59.8 ± 10.8 min versus 102.3 ± 34.9 min, p < .001). TOETVA is less painful postoperatively (visual analog scale score on day 4 of 1.1 ± 1.2 versus 1.8 ± 0.7, p < .001). There were no significant differences between TOETVA and COT groups regarding incidences of transient recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN) injury (10.6% and 6.5%, respectively, p = .697) and both transient and permanent hypoparathyroidism (8.5% versus 3.5%, p = .644 with transient and 0% versus 6.7%, p = .166 with permanent). Other complications were comparable between two arms such as bleeding, seroma, and infection. At 3 months after surgery, the TOETVA group had the significantly higher proportion of the very satisfied level than the COT group (80.9% versus 35.4%, p < .001). TOETVA in patients with favorable features is a safe, viable alternative to open thyroidectomy regarding postoperative outcomes and provide higher satisfaction after surgery in the long term.