Bilateral Modified Radical Neck Dissection for Metastatic Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma
Courtney Gibson, MD, MS, FACS; Tobias Carling, MD, PhD, FACS
Yale School of Medicine

Radical neck dissection was once the standard of care for the surgical management of patients with thyroid cancer and cervical lymph node metastases. However, due to the significant morbidity of this procedure, the development of cervical lymphadenectomy procedures that could provide oncologic cure while minimizing morbidity was undertaken by many surgeons. Such an investigation has led to the development of the modified radical neck dissection (MRND). Still, many institutions are not familiar with performing a comprehensive MRND in the setting of thyroid cancer metastatic to the lateral lymph node compartments. This article presents such an operation under general anesthesia.