As medical technologies advance, patients are benefiting with less invasive procedures that promote preservation over removal. One of the best examples of this is thyroid radiofrequency ablation (RFA), which offers some key benefits over surgery, starting with the fact that we can preserve your thyroid and its ability to function.
If you’re one of the more than 45,000 people in the United States who are diagnosed with thyroid cancer each year or you have a problematic thyroid nodule, here’s what leading thyroid expert Dr. Sean P. Nikravan wants you to know about thyroid RFA.
Let’s start this discussion with a brief description of what we mean by radiofrequency ablation. In brief, RFA is a technique in which we use thermal energy to destroy tissue, quickly and cleanly.
To do this, Dr. Nikravan inserts a needle, which is an electrode, into your neck. Using ultrasound imaging to guide him, he delivers RF energy into the nodule to ablate the tissue.
This approach is best for small thyroid nodules and for cancers that are isolated and that feature good, clear margins that we can work within. In general, larger nodules don’t have good margins and are often attached to vital structures, which makes surgery the better option.
Now let’s get into some of the many benefits of thyroid RFA over surgery.
It used to be that thyroid disease was handled with a much more aggressive approach, which often meant removing whole lobes (the thyroid has two) or the entire gland. This approach usually sets patients on a lifetime course of hormone therapy.
With RFA, Dr. Nikravan can target tissue with more accuracy thanks to clear imaging with ultrasound and precise bursts of RF energy. As a result, he can remove only what’s necessary, leaving healthy, functional tissue behind that would have otherwise been collateral damage with surgery.
This often means patients can avoid long-term hormone therapies because there’s enough of the gland left to produce thyroid hormones.
Dr. Nikravan only needs to make a very small incision for the probe, so thyroid RFA is far less invasive than open surgery. This translates to:
Because the incision is minimal, your risks for postoperative infections are also much lower.
Another benefit that our patients appreciate is that we don’t need to use general anesthesia to treat your thyroid disease. With thyroid RFA, we use local anesthesia or conscious sedation.
A thyroid RFA is an outpatient procedure, which means that you can go home as soon as Dr. Nikravan clears you after your procedure. With thyroid surgery, there’s often an overnight stay in the hospital.
As you can see, there are some great benefits to thyroid RFA over surgery. If you’d like to get a better visual of the thyroid RFA in action, we invite you to check out Dr. Nikravan’s YouTube video here.
To learn whether you’re a good candidate for thyroid RFA or to find out more about available treatments, contact Sean P. Nikravan, MD, at our office in Newport Beach, California, to schedule a consultation.
