Scar-Reducing or Scarless Thyroid Surgery

Doctors at NYU Langone’s Thyroid Program are leaders in advanced, remote access surgery to manage benign or cancerous thyroid nodules or to remove the thyroid gland to manage various thyroid conditions, without a visible scar on the front of the neck.

With remote access endocrine surgery, our experts avoid making incisions on the front of the neck, and instead make tiny incisions under the chin, inside and behind the lower lip, or behind the ear to reduce or eliminate scarring.

During surgery, we also use recurrent laryngeal nerve monitoring to minimize the risk of damage to the nerve that helps the voice box to function. We may also use parathyroid autofluorescence, a technology that minimizes the risk of damaging the parathyroid glands, which are located near the thyroid.

Specialists in Retroauricular Thyroid Surgery

Our doctors perform robotic-assisted retroauricular thyroid surgery to remove part or all of the thyroid. We make an incision behind the ear to minimize visible scarring and use a surgical robot to help perform the procedure. The robotic-assisted approach results in excellent visualization and gives us the ability to perform the surgery with a hidden incision.

Innovators in Scarless Thyroid Surgery

As an early leader in performing the transoral endoscopic technique, in which the thyroid is accessed through incisions made in the mouth, our surgeons were the first to develop a new type of “scarless” procedure known as the transoral and submental technique (TOaST) to remove the thyroid. For this procedure, we make a tiny incision hidden in the natural fold under the chin and behind the lower lip area in the mouth to remove thyroid tissue, a method that minimizes visible scarring. The scar in the mouth is not visible, and the incision on the chin is nearly invisible.