TY  - JOUR
T1  - A Clinical Study to Assess the Risk of Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve Injury in Thyroid Surgery in A Tertiary Care Hospital
AU - Sathyavani, S. AU - Edwards, Alex 
JO  - Research Journal of Medical Sciences
VL  - 19
IS  - 4
SP  - 129
EP  - 132
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2001/08/19
SN  - 1815-9346
DO  - makrjms.2025.4.129.132
UR  - https://makhillpublications.co/view-article.php?doi=makrjms.2025.4.129.132
KW  - Recurrent laryngeal nerve
KW  - thyroid surgery
AB  - A post – operative bilateral permanent Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve (RLN)
Palsy is a surgical tragedy. It is an iatrogenic horror comparable to a
surgically induced facial nerve paralysis and possibly more incapacitating
and embarrassing than the loss of a lower limb. Further more such a
disaster is more than likely to be followed by the misery of litigation.
Unfortunately thyroidectomy continues to produce a high rate of
complications and damage to the recurrent laryngeal nerve is occasionally
an inevitable complication of thyroid surgery. It may be temporary or
permanent and/or unilateral or bilateral.Since the remarkable
contributions to thyroidectomy made by Kocher, there have been
modification by various surgeons, great surgical pioneers such as Wolf
and Blight recognized the risk of injury to the RLN and even today the
reported incidence ranges from 0.3‐ 13.2%. This study was conducted at
sree mookambika college of medical sciences at department of general
surgery from the year of oct 2023 to april 2025 . The results of the study
are analysed with references to the number of RLNs encountered during
operations, and not in relation to the number of operations performed.A
total of 100 nerves were observed. Of these 53 nerves were exposed. A
total of 100 nerves were observed. Of these 53 nerves were exposed and
47 nerves were not identified. Right recurrent laryngeal nerves numbered
57 and left 43. No single case of bilateral paralysis was encountered in
this study. Out of the 100 nerves, 8 were found to be primarily injured in
the immediate post operative period . Among the 8 nerves injured 4
cases recovered in the 1 year follow up; first 2 within 21 days after
surgery and the remaining 2 cases recovered before the end of 1 year.In
the remaining 4 cases damage (all unilateral) was permanent, putting the
overall incidence of permanent recurrent laryngeal nerve injury to around
4%. Identification of the RLN during thyroid operations can reduce the
vulnerability to damage. A total of 100 nerves were observed.
ER  -