Neural Monitoring of the Superior Laryngeal Nerve in Thyroid Surgery

Launched by THE ROYAL WOLVERHAMPTON HOSPITALS NHS TRUST · Mar 16, 2015

Keywords

ClinConnect Summary

Thyroid surgery can result in change in the voice. This is because two nerves controlling the voice quality are situated very close anatomically to the thyroid gland and are at risk of damage during the surgery. One of the nerves that is called the recurrent laryngeal nerve controls the movements of the voice cords and is more readily identifiable and its injury is also detected easily by direct examination of the voice box as reduced/absent movement of the voice cord. It gets damaged in upto 1% of thyroid surgeries. The other nerve that is of interest to our study is called the superior la...

Gender

ALL

Eligibility criteria

• Inclusion Criteria:
• • Patients undergoing diagnostic hemithyroidectomies (thyroid nodules 5 cm or less).
• • age 18 and over
• • able to provide informed consent
• Exclusion Criteria:
• • Patients who develop a recurrent laryngeal nerve palsy following surgery will be excluded from the study.
• • Patients who withdraw consent during or after study
• • Patients with pre-existing laryngeal pathology like reinkes edema, vocal cord nodules, laryngeal inflammation, previous laryngeal surgery etc
• • Pregnant women (confirmed by history and routine pregnancy test)
• • Those unable to give informed consent
• • Previous major neck surgery such as neck dissections, laryngeal surgery, carotid endarterectomies, parathyroid and thyroid surgery.