Surgical treatment of retrosternal goiter.

The definition of substernal goiter is not uniform and varies among authors. We can define substernal--or retrosternal-goiter a thyroid formation with cervical departure that goes beyond the superior thoracic strait for at least 3 cm and that preserves, generally, the connections between the cervical and thoracic portion, maintaining a direct vascularization supplied by the thyroid arteries. The "forgotten" goiter is an extremely rare disease: a...