Abstract: Background: Thyroid swellings are one of the most common cases that present in surgical OPD. In general thyroid surgeries are associated with an extremely low mortality rate, though dangerous and life threatening complications such as respiratory distress and haemorrhage have been reported infrequently. Most of the complications can be avoided with proper surgical precautions and techniques.
Aim: To study the incidence and prevalence of complications after total thyroidectomy.
Materials and Methods: Patients with obvious thyroid swellings were included in a prospective study which was conducted for a year in a tertiary centre. Various entities like clinical examination, ultrasonological studies and tissue diagnosis were included.
Results: In this study, of the total 50 patients, incidence of thyroid swellings were much higher in the age distribution between 30-40 years of about 48 percent. It was found that there was a female predominance, when compared to the male gender with a higher percentage of 84%. About 34% patients were clinically diagnosed with diffuse goitre, 29% patients were diagnosed with multinodular goitre, 25% patients with carcinoma thyroid, 12% patients with solitary nodule. In this study population of 50 patients, only 10 patients were found to have complications. Out of the 10 patients who developed complications in the post operative period, the most common complication were hypocalcemia. Which was noted in 4 patients about 8%, 2 patients developed haemorrhage (4%) and voice change was seen in 2 patients and 1 patient developed wound infection and only one patient developed RLN palsy.
Conclusion: In this study on 50 patients, the post operative complications were studied. Only 10 patients developed post operative complications. The most common post operative complications was found to be hypocalcemia followed by haemorrhage. The incidence of transient recurrent laryngeal nerve injury and hypocalcemia were within the acceptable limits. Incidence of wound infection in minimal. Complications and sequelae of thyroid surgery can yet be reduced by careful evaluation of the surgical and medical therapeutic options, have more precise surgical indications, a thorough knowledge of the surgical anatomy, a rigorous surgical technique, a systematic dissection of recurrent laryngeal nerve and parathyroid gland.
