Available online 29 April 2022, 101664

Thyroid surgery is one of the most common head and neck procedures. The thyroid can be accessed through an anterior cervical incision, or by remote access techniques such as the transoral endoscopic thyroidectomy vestibular approach (TOETVA) which is favored for its ease, safety and direct plane to the thyroid gland. Other novel approaches for targeting small-localized well-differentiated thyroid cancer are by thermal ablation, namely ultrasound guided radiofrequency ablation. These innovative techniques for minimizing a cutaneous scar or for targeting small cancers directly without removal of the gland have developed alongside our realization that low risk well-differentiated thyroid cancer tends to be slow growing and indolent. Up to date, the most robust data supports offering these therapies primarily to patients who would be eligible for active surveillance protocols. In this paper, we review the traditional surgical approaches for removing well-differentiated thyroid cancer, as well as innovative remote access techniques (namely TOETVA), and minimally invasive thermal ablation (namely RFA).

thyroid surgery

thyroid cancer

transoral thyroidectomy

radiofrequency ablation

transoral endoscopic thyroid vestibular approach

transoral robotic thyroidectomy

radiofrequency ablation

laser thermal ablation

high-intensity focused ultrasound

American Thyroid Association guidelines

National Comprehensive Cancer Network guidelines

recurrent laryngeal nerve

well-differentiated thyroid cancer

© 2022 Published by Elsevier Ltd.