Ultrasonic coagulator for thyroidectomy: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effect of ultrasonic coagulator for thyroidectomy. METHODS randomized controlled trials were searched in PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, SCI, Chinese Biomedical Database, China Academic Journals Full-Text Database, Chinese Scientific Journals Database, and China Online Journals. The authors evaluated the quality of included studies by Handbook 5.0.0, and analyzed data by Cochrane Collaboration's RevMan 5.0. RESULTS A total of 11 RCTs with 1420 patients met the criteria. Between ultrasonic coagulator and conventional technique, there were significant differences in operative time of total thyroidectomy (P < .00001) and amount of intraoperative bleeding (P = .02). There were no significant differences in operative time of part thyroidectomy (P = .07), amount of postoperative drainage (P = .18), cases of transient hypocalcemia (P = .41), cases of transient recurrent nerve paresis (P = .21), and total cost in hospital (P = .08). CONCLUSIONS Current studies demonstrate that ultrasonic coagulator has a significant reduction on the operating time of total thyroidectomy and the amount of intraoperative bleeding in thyroidectomy, without increasing complications and total cost in hospital.