Minimally invasive video-assisted thyroidectomy: four-year experience of a single team in a General Surgery Unit.

Minimally invasive video-assisted thyroidectomy (MIVAT) is a surgical technique that has showed increasingly good results, particularly in endocrine surgery centers. The aim of this prospective, non-randomized study was to evaluate feasibility, advantages and critical aspects of MIVAT in a general surgery unit.Two hundred twenty-four patients underwent total thyroidectomy for benign thyroid disease from May, 2008 to April, 2011. They were divided into two groups: one underwent conventional thyroidectomy (CT), and the other underwent MIVAT. The inclusion criteria were thyroid volume ≤35 mL and main nodule size ≤35 mm. For each patient, socio-demographic variables, hospitalization data and ou…