Forest Park Medical Center - First Hospital In Dallas To Offer Transaxillary Robotic Thyroidectomy

PR Log (Press Release) – Sep 03, 2009 – Forest Park Medical Center and Dr. Andy Chung are pleased to announce the first Transaxillary Robotic Thryroidectomies in Dallas.  da Vinci Thyroidectomy first and foremost provides surgeons with a superior tool and technique for thyroid surgery. It also gives patients a surgical option that eliminates all visible scars. With open techniques, surgeons strive to make the incision as small as possible, which may compromise their exposure and ultimately visualization of the operative field. With da Vinci Thyroidectomy, surgeons achieve superior exposure by using a specialized transaxillary retractor that elevates the strap muscles. The surgeon is then able to view the fully exposed thyroid in a three-dimensional, HD image with up to 10x magnification. This exposure and visualization of the thyroid is better than that of most if not all open techniques and certainly superior to any endoscopic technique practiced today.

Furthermore, to many patients the presence of any scar is significant. Patients are overwhelmingly female (~75% of all cancer operations) and increasingly younger as screening techniques and technologies improve. While some surgeons successfully minimize neck scars with mini-open surgical techniques, scars remain nonetheless in highly visible areas. For these reasons, many surgeons have tried over the years to employ traditional endoscopic techniques. However, these techniques generally forced a trade-off between good cosmetic results and efficacy of the procedure. With da Vinci, not only are the cosmetic results excellent, the surgical platform enables potentially better results than are possible even with open surgery.
   
About Dr. Andy Chung
Dr. Andy Chung is a board certified ENT Surgeon who specializes in Head & Neck Cancer Surgery.  Dr. Chung attended Loma Linda School of Nursing (B.S.N. 1993) and graduated from Loma Linda University School of Medicine (M.D. 2000).  He completed his Internship in General Surgery and Residency in Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery at Duke University Medical Center (2000 – 2005).  He was a fellow in Microvascular Head & Neck Cancer Surgery and Transoral Laser Microsurgery at Washington University School of Medicine (2005 – 2006) after which he served as a Staff Surgeon specializing in Surgical Oncology and Microvascular Reconstruction in the Colorado Permanente Department of Head & Neck Surgery.  Subsequent to this he entered Private Practice in Dallas as a member of the Dallas ENT Group, www.dallasentgroup.com.      

About Forest Park Medical Center
Completed in March of 2009, Forest Park Medical Center is located at 11990 North Central Expressway, Dallas, Texas 75243.  Additional features include 24 luxury inpatient rooms; 8 state of the art fully integrated operating rooms; 1 endoscopy/minor procedure suite; and 19-bay preoperative and postoperative areas.  For more information please contact Forest Park Medical Center and Dr. Andy Chung, please call our Referral Department at 469-624-5748 or check out our website at www.forestparkmc.com.