Prevention of recurrent laryngeal nerve injury during operation in benige thyroid neoplasms / 中国耳鼻咽喉头颈外科

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE To investigate the reasons and preventive measures of recurrent laryngeal nerve injury during operation in patients with benign thyroid neoplasm. METHODS The clinical data of 2243 cases with benign thyroid neoplasm were reviewed. The relations among different neoplasm regions, different procedures and injury of recurrent laryngeal nerve were analyzed. RESULTS Injury incidence of recurrent laryngeal nerve in this study was 3.0 %. In cases with nodular goiter on the dorsum of thyroid and recurrent laryngeal nerve exposed during operation, injury incidence of recurrent laryngeal nerve was 1.0 %. And there was no recurrent laryngeal nerve injury in cases with nodular goiter on other region of the thyroid. In cases used locality protection during operation, injury incidence of recurrent laryngeal nerve was 7.6 % when benign lesions on the dorsum of thyroid and was 0.17 % when benign lesions on other region of the thyroid. CONCLUSION In cases with nodular goiter or adenoma on the dorsum of thyroid, exposing recurrent laryngeal nerve is necessary during operation and in cases with benign lesions on other region of thyroid, locality protection is useful. There are three major routes for recurrent laryngeal nerve exposure.