An Audit of the Procedure of Open Thyroidectomy at A Tertiary Care Centre.

We plan to evaluate the various variables associated with the complications of thyroidectomy performed at our department in the last 5 years. Medical records of the patients who underwent thyroidectomy during 2014-2018 were collected. Complications of hypocalcemia and recurrent laryngeal nerve palsy were analysed in terms of the demography, cytopathology and the extent of surgery. Student's t -test, Mann-Whitney U -test, Fisher exact test and chi square test were applied to look for any significant associations. P value < 0.05 was considered significant. 123 patients were analysed (87 females, 38 males). Mean age was 38.3 years (range 11-71 years). Most common cytopathology was papillary carcinoma thyroid (Bethesda VI) - 43/123 (35%). 107 of these 123 patients underwent primary surgery, 10 underwent revision surgery while 6 underwent completion thyroidectomy. Seven patients incurred RLN palsy out of which 3 were temporary. RLN palsy was seen in only malignant cases ( p  < 0.05). Incidence was higher in T4a stage ( p  < 0.05). However, it had no association with a simultaneous central or lateral neck dissection. Hypocalcemia was seen in 22 patients (17.8%), out of whom 9 patients developed permanent hypocalcemia. It was seen significantly higher in patients undergoing central neck dissection ( p  < 0.05) and in malignant thyroid lesions ( p  < 0.05). Gender, age and the cytopathology had no bearing on RLN palsy and hypoparathyroidism. Malignant thyroid lesions had a significantly higher incidence of RLN palsy and hypoparathyroidism. A thorough anatomical knowledge can reduce the incidence of these complications.
Competing Interests: Conflict of interestThe authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
(© Association of Otolaryngologists of India 2020.)