ObjectiveTo explore the safety, effectiveness, and cosmetic advantage of endoscopic thyroidectomy for differentiated thyroid cancer in the cT1N0 stage. MethodsThe clinical data of 148 patients underwent thyroidectomy for the cT1N0 differentiated thyroid cancer in the First Affiliated Hospital of PLA General Hospital and the PLA General Hospital from September 2010 to September 2013 were analyzed retrospectively, including 36 patients by total endoscopic thyroidectomy (TET group), 41 patients by endoscopic-assisted thyroidectomy (EAT group), and 71 patients by open thyroidectomy (OT group). The intraoperative status, early complications, late complications, and cosmetic result were compared among these three groups. ResultsAll the procedures were accomplished successfully.①In the intraoperative status: The operation time of the TET group was significantly longer than that of the EAT group(P < 0.05)or OT group (P < 0.05), drainage on the first day after operation in the TET group was significantly more than that in the EAT(P < 0.05)or OT group (P < 0.05), the intraoperative bleeding of the TET group or EAT group was significantly less than that of the OT group (P < 0.05), there were no statistical significances in the total number of lymph nodes dissection and number of positive lymph nodes among three groups (P > 0.05).②In the early complications: The postoperative pain score of the TET group was significantly lower than that of the EAT group (P < 0.05)or OT group (P < 0.05), there were no statistical significances in the postoperative bleeding, seroma, infection, transient recurrent laryngeal nerve paralysis, or transient hypoparathyroidism among three groups (P > 0.05).③In the late complications: there was no statistical significance in the perpetual recurrent laryngeal nerve paralysis, perpetual hypoparathyroidism, or thyroid cancer relapse among three groups (P > 0.05).④The best cosmetic result was obtained by the patients underwent TET as compared with the patients underwent EAT(P < 0.05)or OT (P < 0.05). ConclusionsEndoscopic procedure has the same effectiveness and safety with open procedure for differentiated thyroid cancer in the cT1N0 stage, but endoscopic procedure has a better cosmetic result than that open procedure. Compared with EAT, TET has more advantages in the cosmetic result.