SURGICAL MANAGEMENT OF INTRATHORACIC GOITER THROUGH THE STERNUM-SPLITTING APPROACH

Abstract

AT THE 1949 meeting of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery, Adams¹ reported on the surgical experience of of the Lahey Clinic in the care of 28,000 patients with goiters. He and others have considered intrathoracic goiter to be that variety in which the thyroid mass lies in the mediastinum entirely below the level of the thoracic inlet. In the vast majority of instances, lesions of this type have been removed with the aid of the maneuver described by Lahey,² in which the semisolid colloid central portion of these masses is evacuated sufficiently to permit the delivery through the neck of the remaining peripheral and capsular portions of the thyroid gland. In this report, Adams goes on to state that in the past few years of their experience there have been three cases in which the intrathoracic goiter had been removed transthoracically. He further remarks that there has