Thyroid and endocrine surgery

The team works closely with colleagues from other specialities including endocrinology, radiology, nuclear medicine, pathology, and oncology. We meet regularly in our thyroid, parathyroid and adrenal multidisciplinary meetings. This allows us to provide a comprehensive service and ensure each patient receives the best possible care, tailored to their needs.

At UCLH, we perform more than 400 thyroid and endocrine surgery operations per year. This includes a wide variety of procedures, from minimally invasive day parathyroid surgery to major cancer and neck dissection interventions. These are performed with the assistance of high-quality technology such as intra-operative nerve monitoring, intra-operative parathyroid hormone measurements and indocyanine green fluorescence state of the art intra-operative cameras to optimise and improve surgical outcomes.

The surgical team participate and contribute data to the British Association of Endocrine and Thyroid Association national audit as well as the European Society of Endocrine Surgery

The team is supported by endocrine surgical fellows and residents who work alongside the consultants. They participate in the development of research projects while training in this specialty. The clinical nurse specialists and support workers within our team help to support and co-ordinate the care of patients on the outpatient pathway, and perioperatively, with both benign and malignant endocrine diagnoses.

We have an established a weekly one-stop thyroid clinic service for new or concerning thyroid nodules, which provides patients with a full assessment and diagnosis of thyroid nodules with results discussed with the patient on the same day. This is especially important for those patients who suffer thyroid cancer and require expedited diagnosis and treatment.

We are very pleased to offer patients scarless thyroid and parathyroid surgery—transoral thyroid and parathyroid endoscopic (keyhole) surgery. This is a technique that removes the thyroid or parathyroid gland without leaving a visible scar on the neck.

The endocrine surgery team has also worked closely with the radiology team to offer non-surgical treatment of thyroid nodules. This is performed as a joint procedure with radio-frequency ablation of suitable thyroid nodules.

Other conditions treated include:

• Thyroid nodules
• Thyroid cancer
• Graves´ disease
• Thyrotoxicosis
• Multinodular goitre
• Hyperparathyroidism
• Parathyroid cancer
• Adrenal tumours
• Adrenal cancer
• Cushing syndrome
• Conn's Syndrome
• Secondary hyperparathyroidism
• Tertiary hyperparathyroidism
• Phaeocromocytoma
• Paraganglioma

The clinical nurse specialists and support workers within our team help to support and co-ordinate the care of patients on the outpatient pathway, and perioperatively, with both benign and malignant endocrine diagnoses.

Macmillan Support and Information Service provides further support and advice on cancer-related conditions to patients and relatives.