Intraoperative neuromonitoring of the recurrent laryngeal nerve during thyroid cancer surgery / 中华内分泌外科杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To explore the clinical significance of intraoperative neuromonitoring (IONM)of recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN) during thyroid cancer surgery.Methods 200 patients undergoing thyroid cancer surgery from Oct.2011 to May 2012 were retrospectively reviewed.The 200 patients were divided into 2 groups100 patients in group A with IONM and 100 patients in group B without IONM.Results Group A had less RLN exposure time than group B(10.5 vs 15.3 mins,P ＜0.01).Group A had shorter operation time than group B (78.5 vs 82.3 mins).The difference had no statistical significance (P ＞ 0.05).Transient RLN palsy occurred to 5 cases in group A and 11 cases in group B(P＜0.05).Permanent RLN palsy occurred to 1 case in group A.No one in groupB had permanent RLN palsy (P ＞ 0.05).Conclusions IONM can reduce the incidence of transient RLN palsy compared with visualization alone.It is an effective procedure for identifying and protecting RLN in thyroid cancer surgery.