Is it safe not to ligate the inferior thyroid artery during subtotal thyroidectomy?

Abstract EN

Thyroid surgeries are common operations with an extremely low mortality.

It is associated with specific morbidities which are dramatically decreased due to the rapid progression in operative techniques which helped to make the thyroid surgery less feared and better understood than it once was.

Inferior thyroid artery is one of the vital structures that require special attention during operative technique in order to avoid troublesome and in most cases a preventable complications.

We conducted this study to assess the: Prevalence and significance of post-operative hypoparathyroidism following thyroid surgery, with or without inferior thyroid artery ligation.

Incidence of recurrent laryngeal nerve injury with or without inferior thyroid artery ligation.

Intraoperative and post operative bleeding with or without inferior thyroid artery ligation.

A prospective observational study was done from June 2005 to June 2008, at Basrah General Hospital.

One hundred and eight patients underwent subtotal thyroidectomy.

Majority of them (90) patients were females.

Patients were placed in two groups, Group I had inferior thyroid artery ligation whereas in Group II, inferior thyroid artery was not ligated.

Analysis of data reveals that (50%) of patients in group I had hypocalcemia, (16.1%) recurrent laryngeal nerve injury and (4.83%) hematoma, whereas in group II (47.82%) had hypocalcemia, (8.7%) recurrent laryngeal nerve injury and (2.17%) hematoma.

Statistically, there is no significant difference regarding post-operative hypocalcaemia, recurrent laryngeal nerve injury and hematoma formation between truncal ligation and nonligation of inferior thyroid arteries.