Comparison of the Quality of Life for Thyroid Cancer Survivors Who Had Open Versus Robotic Thyroidectomy

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to compare the quality of life (QoL) between conventional open and robotic total thyroidectomy in papillary thyroid carcinoma. Materials and Methods: From January 2011 to July 2013, 229 patients (112 robot and 117 open) were randomly selected. QoL, including overall satisfaction, cosmetic results, voice/sensory change, postoperative pain and impairment of swallowing, neck/shoulder movement, and physical/psychological activity, was recorded. Results: The follow-up period was 32.3 ± 6.3 months. The satisfaction levels of the overall and cosmetic results were 8.95 ± 1.23, 8.40 ± 1.20 and 3.86 ± 0.04, 3.21 ± 0.10 for robotic and open surgery, respectively; these differences were statistically significant (P = .006, <.001). The sensory change might be more noticeable with robotic thyroidectomy (P = .064). There were no differences in the results concerning other variables among the two groups. Conclusion: Robotic thyroidectomy shows comparable results to conventional open thyroidectomy in terms of the postoperative long-term QoL.