Controversies in Endoscopic Thyroidectomyfor Differentiated Thyroid Cancer        QIU Ming. Department of Minimally Invasive Surgery, Changzheng Hospital Affiliated to Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200003,China
Abstract    Currently the debate on endoscopic thyroidectomy for differentiated thyroid cancer is focused on the range of safety resection of primary tumor and cervical lymph nodes. Although lacking the support from related long-term clinical follow-ups, the current clinical comparison studies and short-term data have somewhat proved that applying endoscopic thyroidectomy to some selected cases of thyroid cancer is technically safe and feasible. Considering the operational differences among endoscopic surgeries through various approaches, the BAET is only applicable to papillary thyroid microcarcinoma, while the feasible range of MIVAT has been expanded to some low-risk papillary carcinoma patients.