Lucknow, Feb 15 (IANS): Surgeons at Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS) have performed the country's first surgery through the oral route by using a medical robot.

This will provide a major aesthetic relief to patients who need to go under the scalpel for thyroid defects.

The traditional surgery for the condition left behind a scar either on the neckline or in the armpit. And in a good number of cases, the scar would be hypertrophic (a thick raised scar that surfaces due to abnormal response to wound healing) and became a cosmetic issue for women if it was in the neck.

In the armpit, the hypertrophic scar led to movement problems.

SGPGI's surgical endocrinology department is among the first in the country to conduct thyroid surgeries through the 'necklace' method that camouflaged the scar in the natural folds of the age-related lines on the neck.

In September 2019, SGPGI started robotic thyroidectomy and conducted surgery of over 40 patients since then through the armpit route.

"Now, with the trans-oral route, the procedure has become totally scar-free," said department head Prof Amit Agarwal, adding that SGPGI is one the four centres in the country to be conducting thyroidectomy through robotic procedure.