Yip Swee Yan and Dato Dr. Yip Kok Thye
University of Glasgow, UK
Lam Wah Ee Hospital, Malaysia
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: Surgery Curr Res
Introduction: Per-Oral Endoscopic Thyroidectomy (POET) is a developing novel technique based on the principles of minimally invasive surgery offering ???scar-free??? thyroidectomy. To date, results from various individual centers have been published internationally but none from Malaysia or Singapore. This paper discusses the surgical outcomes of POET compared to video thyroidectomy (endoscopic thyroidectomy) to investigate the feasibility of POET as a safe alternative. Methodology: This is a single tertiary hospital, single surgeon based retrospective analysis of 98 selected patients (mean age: 43.5 years old) undergoing POET in 12 months (July 2017 to July 2018). It records the complication rates post-operatively until day of discharge. Inclusion criteria: Benign cyst, benign follicular adenoma or nodule, multinodular goiter, toxic goiter, Thyroiditis (Hashimoto???s and Lymphocytic), thyroid carcinoma (papillary and follicular). Exclusion criteria: Size of lesion >10cm either dimension on ultrasound neck Results: The average length of stay (2 days) and average time of operation (69 minutes) was comparable to that of video thyroidectomy. There was no blood loss >500ml (0%) and no wound infection (0%) recorded among the 98 patients. Only 1 out of 98 patients (1%) had permanent recurrent laryngeal nerve palsy. Clinical hypocalcemia described as cramp and lip paresthesia was experienced by 6 patients (6%). 5% had transient mental nerve injury described as mental paresthesia. Conclusion & Significance: POET is a promising safe alternative technique to thyroidectomy with significantly better surgical outcome as compared to video thyroidectomy. It can be an option to offer patients who are especially driven to achieve perfect cosmesis. In terms of operation time and identification of RLN, it is comparable to VT. This technique has a strong potential to be useful when lowering the rate of developing keloidal scar and hypertrophic scaring.
Yip Swee Yan is currently a medical student in University of Glasgow and has an interest in innovative surgical techniques and areas regarding improvement of patient outcomes.
E-mail: yipsyan@yahoo.com
