Minimally invasive technique, applied in the operating room with local anesthesia. Pedro Sá Couto, general surgeon at Hospital São João, explains that the thyroid nodule is not removed, but destroyed. “With ultrasound support, we control the entire procedure, we use a needle that we place inside the thyroid nodule and this needle has a system that generates heat at the end. That heat will burn, vaporize the thyroid name. heat, that will destroy it.
The nodule does not completely disappear immediately, but over the course of six months it shrinks and becomes clinically irrelevant.
This technique is common in South Korea, at Hospital São João it has already been applied to nine patients. Pedro Sá Couto explains who can benefit from this treatment. “It suits high surgical risk patients, older patients who are very high surgical risk. We can also use it in younger patients, with clinically prominent nodules and an annoying aesthetic component and who do not want a scar. The perspective is also in the In the short term they evolve towards the treatment of some malignant situations in which the surgical risk is very high risk, the risk of local injury to noble structures of the neck or even the anesthetic risk itself, we manage to control the disease avoiding surgery.”
In this way, the patient can maintain the thyroid and the body does not suffer the impact of the lack of this hormone. “Without thyroid we cannot live, we have to have thyroid hormone to live. In short, without a thyroid we can die. And when we do a total thyroidectomy we always have to supplement with thyroid hormone for life. When we do less than full thyroidectomies, then it may not be necessary.”
Per year, the São João Hospital performs an average of 500 thyroidectomies. Soon, they will perform this surgery through the mouth, to avoid the scar on the patient’s neck.
Source: TSF
