Postoperative pain is a good indicator to confirm the advantages of the surgical methods in the era of minimally invasive surgery. Lateral neck dissection requires extensive dissection which may leads to postoperative numbness and pain. Robotic thyroid surgery has the advantage of precise and careful dissection and avoid the L-shape incision in the open approach. The study aims to explore the pain intensity and severity of lateral neck dissection on operation day, postoperative month 1 and postoperative month 3 among the robotic, endoscopic and open approach.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Patients underwent lateral neck dissection via robotic, endoscopic or open approach
• Clinical diagnosis of differentiated thyroid cancer
• Clinical diagnosis of metastatic lateral lymph nodes

Exclusion Criteria:

• Participants with distant metastasis
• Participants with history of neck surgery or radiation
• Participants with vocal fold fixation by preoperative fibrolaryngoscope

Patients with FNA proven differentiated thyroid cancer and metastatic lateral lymph nodes, underwent lateral neck dissection via robotic, endoscopic or open approach. Patients were well informed about the potential benefits and risks of robotic, endoscopic and open approach. Patient consented for us to use perioperative data.

Data are available on request due to privacy or other restrictions. The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from Ling Zhan. The data are not publicly available due to them containing information that could compromise research participant privacy.