Video

Surgeons at the University Hospital of Liege in Liege, Belgium, perform approximately 1000 thyroidectomies a year primarily to treat patients for goiters. To accommodate performing the high number of procedures, the Liege surgical team developed techniques to make the surgery more effective. On August 10, 2006, at 6 p.m. CEST Time (Belgium) and 12 p.m. EDT Time (U.S.), join Thierry Defechereux, MD, Assistant Professor, from the University Hospital of Liege in Belgium and Eren Berber, MD, Assistant Professor – Endocrine Surgery, from The Cleveland Clinic in the United States in a live webcast presentation collaborating on the "Conventional Total Thyroidectomy for Thyroid Disease Using Harmonic™ Technology". Drs. Defechereux and Berber perform an open conventional thyroidectomy using only an ultrasonic device, Harmonic ACE™, to dissect, coagulate, and transect various tissue and blood vessels without the need for multiple instrument exchanges and without the need to tie blood vessels manually. A thyroidectomy is a procedure to remove all or part the small soft gland at the base of the larynx called the thyroid. Surgeons remove the gland when they suspect cancer and overactivity or enlargement, such as goiter. The high iodine deficiency in Central Europe leads to a high incidence of goiter.