Your thyroid operation

Your thyroid operation with Mr Christakis

Mr Christakis will review all of the available information (your past medical history, symptomatology, biochemical results, scan results, body habitus) and formulate for you a personal/individualised operative plan.

No patient is the same and every individual needs to have an operation that is tailored specifically to their needs.

Thyroid operations can technically be very straight-forward and quick but they can also end up be very complex and lengthy in time depending on the underlying pathology and the individual patient. It is obvious that the more complex an operation, the higher are the surgical risks.

Mr Christakis offers all spectrums of thyroid operations including major thyroid cancer surgery with lymph node neck dissection and reoperations.

Mr Christakis offers the following thyroid operations :

  • Thyroidectomy for thyroid cancer (papillary, follicular, medullary) with/without lymph node dissection (central-lateral)
  • Graves’ disease / thyrotoxicosis / toxic adenoma
  • Suspicious thyroid nodules (Thy3-Thy4-Thy5)
  • Retrosternal goitre
  • Redo-operations
  • Thyroidectomy for rare and genetic diseases including Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia (MEN2)
Before the operation Mr Christakis will perform a fibreoptic nasoendoscopy (vocal cord check) to check that that your voice box works normally. It does not hurt and only lasts 1 minute.

During the operation, Mr Christakis uses a special device called intraoperative nerve monitoring to check that the laryngeal nerves are working normally/have not been affected from the operation.

Post-operative care and what to expect

The cosmetic result is excellent and when the wound heals it looks like a nice wrinkle at the base of the neck.

Mr Christakis stiches the skin just like the plastic surgeons and uses a special glue on top of it. You will not have any stiches on the outside, no drains (plastic tubes) and you do not need to have a dressing on top of your wound. All the stiches are on the inside and are self-absorbable.

You are allowed to eat and drink whatever you want straight after the operation. There are no restrictions to your mobility and you are free to move around as you wish. You might need some regular painkillers (paracetamol) if the wound is sore (Mr Christakis puts local anaesthetic to the wound while you are asleep to give you better pain relief).
You can return to your normal activities as soon as you feel like it.
After your discharge from the hospital, you will have a follow-up appointment (in the clinic or virtually-you will choose) with Mr Christakis to check that you are recovering normally. You will also have a blood test to confirm that all of your thyroid biochemical markers are normal. If everything is normal and you have been cured, you will be discharged back to your GP.