Video-Assisted Neck Surgery (VANS method) for the Management of Various Thyroid Diseases

Abstract

The incidence of thyroid diseases is markedly higher in women than in men, and operations for surgical treatment of these diseases results in the formation of a scar on the anterior neck that is exposed when open-necked clothing is worn cosmetically unappealing, especially for women wishing to wear open-necked clothing. Therefore, a technique for endoscopic endocrine neck surgery that results in a better cosmetic appearance is more cosmetically acceptable results would be desirable, and its demand is expected to increase further in the future. Gagner reported endoscopic parathyroid surgery in 1986, and the world’s first endoscopic thyroid surgery was reported by Yeung and Hüscher in 1997. In 1998, for the first time in Japan, Shimizu reported video-assisted neck surgery (VANS method) using the neck skin lifting method. The following year, Ikeda reported the axillary approach, which has now become the world’s major approach the most popular approach around the world. The procedure began to be covered by insurance for benign tumors, parathyroid gland tumors, and Graves’ disease in 2016, and for malignant tumors in 2018. Currently, in Japan, the VANS method is the most popular method for endoscopic thyroidectomy. In our department, we introduced VANS in 2016, and by August 2022, we had had experience of more than 200 cases.

In this paper, we report on the safety and cosmetic benefits of the VANS method.