Commentary on: a prospective comparison of patient body image after robotic thyroidectomy and conventional open thyroidectomy in patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma

ROBOTIC THYROIDECTOMY (RT), as described and applied in large numbers of patients in Korea, has been to many a revolution in modern thyroid surgery. A thyroidectomy without an incision in the neck is appealing to many patients and some surgeons. In this report, the leaders of the transaxillary robot-assisted thyroidectomy approach are comparing their novel technique with conventional open thyroidectomy (OT) and asking the question whether RT provides a better self-body image and improved quality of life (QoL) than the conventional approach. Their answer favors RT, but we are not convinced with the data presented in this paper. Of the 169 patients (all of whom were female)