Transoral robotic thyroid surgery

Surgical management of thyroid disease has undergone radical changes over the last century. Once feared, with a high mortality rate, thyroidectomies are now a routine procedure with more than 80,000 undertaken in the United States annually (1). As described by Kocher in the late 1880s, most cases are performed through a transcervical approach, which results in scarring that some patients find unsightly and difficult to conceal (2). Given the current epidemic of thyroid disease diagnosis and the young age of these patients, there is significant demand for minimally invasive surgery (3). Robotic transoral thyroid surgery provides an exciting minimally invasive alternative to the current transcervical approach to the thyroid gland