Enter Your Email Address to Receive a
Copy of MedicExhange Member Demograhpics

Robotic assisted thyroidectomy and parathyroidectomy can be used in benign disease requiring surgery. especially in women worried about neck scars.

Good news to the vast number of people, mostly women suffering from thyroid and parathyroid diseases who require surgery!! The glands can now be removed without even an incision in the neck, thanks to the new Robotic assisted neck surgery.

The first Robotic assisted parathyroidectomy in United States or Europe was conducted by Dr. Pier Cristoforo Giulianotti and his team at the University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago. The patient was a 53 year old male who suffered from hyperparathyroidism secondary to renal failure.

Dr. Pier Cristoforo Giulianotti is the chief of minimally invasive, general and robotic surgery at the medical centre. His team used the robotic-assisted da Vinci Surgical System which provides 3-dimensional visualization and greater magnification which aids in the exact location of the small glands in the narrow space of the neck.
Conventional surgery involves a four inch scar in the lower part of the neck which would leave behind a scar. But in the robotic surgery two small incisions were made, one under the right arm and the other over the chest to accommodate the robotic arms and endoscopic camera. The surgeons were continuously monitoring the blood parathyroid hormone levels during surgery to ensure adequate removal of the hyperactive gland.

The advantages of robotic surgery includes cosmetic and psychological benefits of not having a obvious neck scar, lesser recovery time from the surgery and fewer chance in injury to vital structures in the neck like trachea. The surgery is suitable to people with benign thyroid and parathyroid diseases which requires surgery.