To evaluate the surgical safety and oncological completeness of da vinci robotic thyroidectomy via bilateral axillo-breast approach for thyroid carcinoma larger than 2 cm by comparing with conventional open thyroidectomy.

The clinical data of patients with papillary thyroid cancer measuring 2-4 cm underwent robotic thyroidectomy or open thyroidectomy were collected and reviewed.

This study included 30 patients received robotic thyroidectomy and 45 patients underwent open thyroidectomy. All the patient underwent total thyroidectomy and neck lymph node dissection. The cases in robotic thyroidectomy group were completed successfully, and no conversion to open surgery. The mean ages were (36.18 ± 3.5)years and (45.90 ± 2.2)years in robotic thyroidectomy group and open thyroidectomy group, respectively. The operation time of the robotic group was (146.2 ± 30.5) minutes, which was much longer than that of open group(95.9 ± 26.2) minutes (P< 0.001). There were no permanent recurrent laryngeal nerve injury and hypoparathyroidism in both groups. There were no significant differences between the two groups in transient recurrent laryngeal nerve injury rate, transient hypoparathyroidism rate, volume of drainage, the number of retrieved lymph nodes, hospital stay (P> 0.05). The postoperative cosmetic scores were much higher in the robotic group (9.4 ± 0.4) than the open group (5.2 ± 1.2) (P< 0.05).

The robotic total thyroidectomy and neck lymph node dissection has a similar surgical safety and oncological completeness with open thyroidectomy for papillary thyroid carcinomas with tumor size of 2-4 cm, and has excellent cosmetic results, suits for patients caring about the neck scars.

Da Vinci Si surgical system; Thyroidectomy; Thyroid carcinoma; Surgical safety; Oncological completeness