Systematic comparison of cervical and extra-cervical surgical approaches for endoscopic thyroidectomy

Objective To evaluate the clinical application of different surgical approaches for endoscopic thyroidectomy and provide more rational treatment criteria. Methods Collect all randomized controlled trials, multi-center studies, clinical controlled trials, clinical trials and other comparative studies of endoscopic thyroidectomy with a large sample size in different databases through an established search strategy, make a systematic analysis of all the included literature. Results This study selected 12 publications for analysis from more than 800 articles: these included six publications describing cervical thyroidectomy (A) and six publications describing extra-cervical thyroidectomy (B). Conversion to open surgery occurred in 29 patients in group A and only 4 in group B ( p