Implantation of Thyroid Gland After Total Thyroidectomy in Quadriceps Femoris Muscle

Total thyroidectomy, rather thyroidectomy, is currently widely accepted as the modality of choice for treatment of benign thyroid disorders that require surgical excision. The goal of post-thyroidectomy management is to reach a "safe physiological status" of thyroid hormonal profile. Although exogenous levothyroxine replacement has long been safely used as a replacement after total thyroidectomy, it is not considered optimal, as it is bounded by patient's compliance with the treatment and follow-up schedule, effect of mal-absorption, and the inability to compensate for daily physiological alterations.

The concept of endocrinal tissue auto-transplantation has been largely investigated in the case of parathyroid gland, and to a lesser extent for pancreatic islets. Although both the experimental studies of thyroid autotransplantation and the early case reports of lingual thyroid autotransplantations have shown encouraging results, a very limited number of clinical studies investigated thyroid autotransplantation in adult patients with benign thyroid disorders. Moreover, the discrepancy in the patients' characteristics and thyroid autotransplantation technique in these studies hinders the standardization of thyroid autotransplantation for clinical practice. Hypothetically, thyroid autotransplantation offers and attractive alternative for subtotal thyroidectomy, as it enables the preservation of native responsive thyroid tissue in an accessible location, and, thus, evades the risk of possible regrowth in the neck region. The present preliminary clinical study is conducted to investigate the feasibility and outcome of thyroid autotransplantation after total thyroidectomy for patients with benign thyroid disorders (other than thyroiditis).