The value and reasonable choice of total thyroidectomy in the surgical treatment of thyroid cancer        TIAN Wen*，YAO Jing. *Department of General Surgery，General Hospital of PLA，Beijing 100853，China
Corresponding author：TIAN Wen，E-mail：tianwen301@sina.com
Abstract    Surgery is an important method of thyroid cancer treatment. There are two common surgical methods for thyroid cancer treatment: one is the total resection of cancerous side plus isthmus, the other is the total resection of cancerous side, isthmus, and countralateral resection/total resection, which is known as total thyroidectomy. The tumor type, size, lymph node metastasis, postoperative 131I treatment as well as surgeon’s experience are considered to select specific method reasonable choice. The patients can benefit from total thyroidectomy with a huge mass, multifocal or bilateral foci, the presence of lymph node metastasis, and the lesion can be removed with low recurrences rate. Although, it can not be ignored that its higher incidence of postoperative complication compared with the ipsilateral lobectomy plus isthmus resection. So we should choose carefully the method of thyroidectomy surgery. In addition, total thyroidectomy should be strictly controlled indications and surgical techniques for reducing complications.