Robotic Retroauricular Thyroidectomy

Although RRT is generally recommended for thyroid lobectomies, both Byeon et al. and Kim et al. successfully performed total thyroidectomies, with or without neck dissection, using this technique[10,11]. They considered advanced lymph node metastases with extracapsular spread, and advanced thyroid cancer that invaded the surrounding tissues, as contraindications for the use of RRT. They did not consider lymph node metastases without extracapsular spread to be a contraindication. In general, patients with vocal cord paralysis were deemed ineligible for RRT, which was applied most frequently in patients with suspicious nodules or papillary thyroid carcinoma.