INTRODUCTION
Thyroidectomy is commonly performed surgical procedure for benign or malignant thyroid pathologies mostly in young women. In addition to benign pathologies, malignant pathologies also have a very long life expectancy, so patients live for many years with their scars and scar related quality of life is gaining importance by time.
During the preoperative visit, many patients mention about their reservations about the shape of skin incision and risk of cosmetic deformity. In order to minimize or eliminate the scar deformity novel surgical procedures such as mini-incision video assited thyroidectomy, robotic transaxillary thyroidectomy or robotic facelift thyroidectomy were described in the literature (1-4). Beside the cosmetic advantage, these novel procedures have some disadvanteges of additional expensive endoscopic instrumentation, cost, operative time and newer complications such as brachial plexus injury.
In the literature, Kocher’s traditional 8 to 10 cm transverse incision is accepted as a standard incision for thyroid surgeries (5). In today’s perspective, generally 4 to 6 cm lenght is enough for standard operation and surgeon should keep in mind that incision should be as small as possible and as large as necessary. Also the care should be taken in terms of symmetry. Modifications on the incision can be done when patients require extended exposure such as neck dissection or other additional procedures. On the other hand, major reductions in incision length for better cosmesis may increase the incidence of complications (6) . A surgeon should not forget that the control of the disease is more than the cosmetic appearance.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the long term scar appearance and satisfaction of the thyroidectomy patients with classical mid-cervical incision. Also, we aimed to investigate the relationship between the scar length, type of surgery, obesity and patient satisfaction.