Surgical management of substernal goiters: clinical experience of 170 cases

To discuss the presentation, diagnosis, treatment, histopathological findings, and complications of patients who underwent thyroidectomy for substernal goiter in our surgical clinic.

We retrospectively analyzed 170 patients with substernal goiters among 2650 patients undergoing surgical treatment for various thyroid diseases between 1990 and 2003. We evaluated the clinical data, preoperative diagnostic findings, surgical treatments, histopathological results, and postoperative complications.

The most common symptoms were a cervical mass (88%) and dyspnea (35%), but 26% of the patients were asymptomatic. Chest radiography provided the first evidence of a substernal goiter in 77% of the patients. We performed total or near total thyroidectomy and operated through a cervical incision in all but 12 of the patients. There was no operative mortality but 12 (7%) patients suffered temporary hypoparathyroidism and 4 suffered transient vocal cord paralysis (2%). Malignancy was diagnosed by histopathological examination in 22 (13%) patients.

We think that the diagnosis of a substernal goiter is an indication for thyroidectomy, which is associated with very low postoperative morbidity.