Endoscopic Trans-Oral Thyroid Tumour Removal Conducted At City Hospital

Bhubaneswar: A path-breaking surgery involving the removal of a tumour from the thyroid gland of a woman was conducted at The Institute of Medical Sciences and SUM Hospital here on Thursday.

Dr Radhamadhab Sahu, an expert in ENT and skull base surgery at the hospital, employed a new procedure recently, which allowed surgeons to access and remove the thyroid and parathyroid glands through small ports inside the mucosal part of lower lip, which left no visible scar on the neck.

“This is for the first time that such a surgery has been conducted in Odisha through the trans-oral route,” he said.

The 39-year-old woman, who had come to the hospital complaining about a swelling in her
neck, was detected with a tumour in her thyroid gland, which needed to be surgically removed.

“Traditionally, surgeons removed the thyroid glands by making a horizontal incision in the
centre of the neck and the expanse of the scar depended on the size of the gland, the average being 4 to 6 cm long,” Dr Sahu said.

The other endoscopic extra cervical approaches involved a scar and required a very long route to reach the thyroid gland. The present method, known as Trans Oral Endoscopic Thyroidectomy (TET), is the only true scar less procedure based on the principle of Natural Orifice Translumenal Surgery (NOTES). It gives direct access to the thyroid gland and covers a minimum distance to reach the thyroid with least complication rate, Dr. Sahu said.

In this procedure, three ports of 1 cm and 0.5 cm size are made on the inside of the lower lip through which the surgeon is able to place endoscopic instruments between the jaw and skin to open up the working space needed to remove the gland, which is a short distance from the incision site, he said adding the two-hour long procedure is conducted under general anesthesia.

TET is a feasible procedure, which could be the final frontier in endoscopic thyroid surgery.

The team of doctors headed by Dr. Sahu had recently performed Endoscopic Trans Oral submandibular gland removal at IMS and SUM Hospital with excellent results and sparing the patient a big scar.