[Transoral endoscopic thyroidectomy. Part 1: rationale and anatomical studies].

Surgical access trauma in thyroidectomy has been minimized by the adoption of minimally invasive techniques. Extracervical approaches moved the incision lines outside of the visible neck region. However, because of the extensive dissection they no longer comply with the term minimally invasive. Therefore, our goal was to reduce the access trauma and establish a non-traumatic approach according to surgical planes for endoscopic minimally invasive thyroidectomy: the transoral approach.