Self-Retaining Retractor Widox® for Thyroid Surgeries: Technical Note

During a thyroidectomy, perfect exposure of the vascular nerve structures, parathyroid gland, trachea, larynx, esophagus, and lymphnodes is crucial to facilitate the surgeon in the meticulous dissection. WIDOX® (MOSS Spa, Lesa, Italy) is an atraumatic self-retaining thyroidectomy retractor specifically designed for thyroid surgeries with an octagonal shape and six retractors (Fig. 1). It is a sterile, single-use device which keeps the surgical wound and the neck muscles retracted allowing the proper exposure of the operatory field. The device substitutes the manual retractors held by the surgeon's assistants. In our institute, we started using the self-retaining retractor WIDOX® from May 2015 for a total of 50 patients. From our preliminary experience, the self-retaining retractor WIDOX® is simple and practical and can be adapted to each patient. The use of energy-based devices and the neuromonitoring is not prevented by the presence of this retractor.