The conventional surgical treatment for thyroid disease requires long skin incision with skin flap that can result in prominent scar, parethesia, hypesthesia in the neck. With recent developement in surgical techniques for thyroid tumors, several apporaches have been applied to neck surgery. We performed thyroid operations with 3 different methods and evaluated the role of respective operation method.

Three different surgical methods; conventional, minimally invasive open, and endoscopic thyroidectomy with axillary approach, were performed on 60 patients who were admitted to Ajou medical center from June to December 2003. All patients were diagnosed as having a benighn mass in unilateral lobe of thyroid gland preoperatively by ultrasonography and fine needle aspiration cytology. We compared the clinical results of respective 3 operation methods each other.

Hospital stay and the operation time for minimal invasive open thyroidectomy was significantly shorter than those for endoscopic thyroidectomy (P<0.000). Amounts of post operative analgesics were the lowest in minimal invasive open thyroidectomy than other groups (P<0.019). The patients who was treated by using endoscopic procrdure were more satisfied with the cosmetic result. There was no significant complication in three groups.

Minimally invasive open thyroidectomy and endoscopic thyroidectomy can be performed safely with cosmetic benefit, and then recommanded as a alternative operative method in selected patients.