Ultrasonically activated shears in thyroid surgery.
BACKGROUND
Ultrasonically activated shears (UAS) have been documented to be both safe and fast devices in laparoscopic surgery. We studied whether the use of UAS would have some advantage in thyroid surgery.


METHODS
Thyroidectomies, performed by one senior endocrine surgeon between December 1996 and February 1997, were retrospectively matched, with patients operated on by the same surgeon using the conventional method.


RESULTS
Six pairs of total thyroidectomies and one pair of lobectomies could be matched. Mean operating time was 100 minutes for the patients operated on with the UAS and 154 minutes for the patients operated on with the conventional method. The mean operating time with the UAS was thus on average 64.6% of the operation time with the conventional method, with a 95% confidence interval from 50.1% to 83.5% (t = 4.00, 6 df, P = 0.007).


CONCLUSIONS
In this material the use of UAS reduced significantly operating time in thyroidectomies.
Voutilainen
P E
PE
Second Department of Surgery, Helsinki University Central Hospital, Finland.
Haapiainen
R K
RK
Haglund
C H
CH
D016063:Blood Loss, Surgical; D006801:Humans; D011183:Postoperative Complications; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013525:Surgical Instruments; D013965:Thyroidectomy / Q000295:instrumentation*; D014465:Ultrasonics