"Your doctor may recommend that you consider thyroid surgery for 4 main reasons:

You have a nodule that might be thyroid cancer.
You have a diagnosis of thyroid cancer.
You have a nodule or goiter that is causing local symptoms – compression of the trachea, difficulty swallowing or a visible or unsightly mass.
You have a nodule or goiter that is causing symptoms due to the production and release of excess thyroid hormone – either a toxic nodule, a toxic multinodular goiter or Graves’ disease.

The extent of your thyroid surgery should be discussed by you and your thyroid surgeon and can generally be classified as a partial thyroidectomy or a total thyroidectomy. Removal of part of the thyroid can be classified as:

An open thyroid biopsy – a rarely used operation where a nodule is excised directly;
A hemi-thyroidectomy or thyroid lobectomy – where one lobe (one half) of the thyroid is removed;
An isthmusectomy – removal of just the bridge of thyroid tissue between the two lobes; used specifically for small tumors that are located in the isthmus.
Finally, a total or near-total thyroidectomy is removal of all or most of the thyroid tissue."

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https://www.thyroid.org/thyroid-surgery/