- Toboggans technique for retrosternal goitre a valuable technique to protect RLN:
- The surgery of retrosternal goiter is at increased risk for iatrogenic recurrent laryngeal nerve lesion
- Charles Proye:Described a surgical technique to avoid this lesion
- To have a better exposition, resection of the prethyroid muscles can be considered:Particularly if it is a voluminous and / or recurrent goiter.
- The approach starts with:The thyroid isthmus liberation that is dissected free from the anterior part of the trachea and transected
- Then:The middle thyroid vein is divided and the superior pole vessels are divided
- The superior pole is then mobilized laterally:And the recurrent laryngeal nerve is searched for at its entry point into the larynx
- The nerve function can be verified by the neuromonitoring:Which also helps to find it in this vessel-rich area
- The dissection continues between the nerve and the posterior part of the thyroid:Progressively from top to bottom:Descending as on a toboggan
- After the recurrent nerve dissection:The goiter can usually be extracted without difficulty:Dividing the last vessels holding the goiter inside
https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/ve.2014.0009






