[Lymphadenectomy in patients with thyroid cancer: 30 years experience in dealing with the problem]

The article presents an analysis of results of surgical treatment of 2092 patients with cancer of the thyroid gland (CTG) using different kinds of lymphadenectomies. During 30 years 1076 different operations on the lymph nodes of the neck and mediastinum have been made by the same collective of surgeons. The improved strategy and technique of surgical treatment of patients with differentiated CTG, electrophysiological monitoring of the nerves resulted in less postoperative lethality (from 0.89% to 0%), less number of unilateral damages of the inferior laryngeal nerves (from 4.4% to 0.33%), bilateral pareses (from 2.1% to 0%), accessory nerves (from 2.7% to 0.1%). Surgical diagnostics of the regional metastases of cancer at the preclinical stage by means of intraoperative biopsy of not involved cervical lymph nodes of the 3-4 groups and the division of traumatic operations into 2 stages improved the immediate results and did not deteriorate the long-term results of treatment of CTG patients.