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Study shows thyroidectomy causes no significant voice change

By | Thyroid Surgery | No Comments

A recent study reveals that thyroid surgery in specific conditions doesn’t cause significant voice change after the operation.

The study entitled “Influence of neural monitoring during thyroid surgery on nerve integrity and postoperative vocal function” concludes that patients may not experience any change in their voice where there is nerve monitoring confirmation of function post dissection of the recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN) and the external branch of the superior laryngeal nerve (EBSLN).

The British Journal of Surgery (BJS) Society published the study authored by A.F. Engelsman, S. Warhurst, S. Fraser, D. Novakovic, and S.B. Sidhu. The authors are from the Endocrine Surgery Unit and Voice Research Laboratory, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia.

“Prospective data in our first 100 thyroidectomy patients with complete preoperative and post-operative acoustic data following thyroidectomy was published,” S.B. Sidhu said. “This is the largest validated series demonstrating that preservation of the recurrent and external laryngeal nerves documented during thyroid surgery with nerve monitoring correlates to post-operative voice function as measured by an independent voice clinic.”

Thyroidectomy or thyroid surgery is the surgical operation to remove all or part of the thyroid gland, which is a butterfly shaped gland that sits in front of your windpipe and produces the hormone thyroxine.

Permanent voice change is one of the major complications of thyroidectomy however in the present day should occur  in less than 0.5% of after the surgery.

To read the full study manuscript, please go to this link.