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.