Surgical outcomes of video-assisted neck surgery for papillary thyroid carcinoma

New approaches to endoscopic thyroid surgery have been developed to improve cosmetic results, one of which is video-assisted neck surgery (VANS). The present study investigates the safety and effectiveness of thyroidectomy by VANS as oncologic surgery for papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC). The subjects of this retrospective study were 121 patients with PTC, who underwent hemi-thyroid lobectomy and central lymph node dissection via open surgery (n = 102) or VANS (n = 19) at Tokushima University Hospital between 2011 and 2023. We performed 1:1 propensity score matching and then compared the surgical outcomes between the two matched groups. Propensity score matching generated 18 distinct examination pairs. The VANS group had significantly less blood loss (P = 0.003), but a longer operative time (P