# Time heals. A study of thyroidectomy scars

## TL;DR

Most thyroidectomy scars look excellent or very good after five years, with appearance improving over time.

## Contribution

Long-term evaluation shows that thyroidectomy scars improve significantly over five years.

## Key findings

- 95% of scars were excellent or very good after five years.
- Only 5% of patients had regular or bad scars after five years.
- Scar quality improved with postoperative time regardless of risk factors.

## Abstract

•95% of the scars were classified as excellent or very good, Grade 0 or 1 in longer follow-up.•Age, sex, hypertension, diabetes, smoking and history of hypertrophic scars did not show any significant differences.•The cosmetic quality of scar improves with postoperative length of time.

95% of the scars were classified as excellent or very good, Grade 0 or 1 in longer follow-up.

Age, sex, hypertension, diabetes, smoking and history of hypertrophic scars did not show any significant differences.

The cosmetic quality of scar improves with postoperative length of time.

To evaluate the quality of the thyroidectomy scars over a long period of time.

Over a period of two years the quality of the thyroidectomy scars among 283 consecutive patients was registered during their follow-up for malignancies. On a scale of 0 (excellent) to 3 (bad) thyroidectomy scars were classified according to the time after surgery.

After 5 years or more 95% of the scars were classified as excellent or very good; 55% of them were excellent, which indicates that the scar was virtually invisible at a distance of 1.5 meters. Only 5% of the cases had a regular or bad scar after 5-years or more, and only one patient (0.5%) had a bad scar.

The scars remaining after thyroid surgery had an improved appearance with time, and the vast majority of patients had an excellent or very good scar after a period of five years or more.

Level III.