Materials and Methods
The PRISMA statement
(https://www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/prisma/) was followed in the preparation of the present paper, and a modified
PRISMA flowchart is given in Figure 1 4. No
institutional review board approval was necessary for the present work.
The PubMed database was used in order to perform the review of the
literature from January 1st 2017 to January 1st 2023. The following
search string was used: “(intrathoracic OR retrosternal OR
cervico-mediastinal OR substernal) AND (goiter OR goitre)”. All the
pertinent articles were included after careful reading of the titles and
abstracts. Full texts of the included articles were then retrieved by
the first author (LGL) and quantitative and qualitative data were
synthesized accordingly. Papers reporting surgical outcomes of RG mixed
with other thyroid disorders (Reason 1); studies other than original
articles or reviews or case series/reports (Reason 2), or written in
languages other than English or French, or Italian were excluded (Reason
3).
The search strategy retrieved a total of 172 articles and, after
applying the selection criteria, a total of 98 articles were ultimately
analyzed. Additionally, a further 7 articles were retrieved and included
in the discussion after checking through the reference lists of the
relevant studies. Quantitative and qualitative data regarding surgical
outcomes were summarized and systematically reported in tables.