Patients undergoing anticoagulant or antiplatelet treatment are not a high-risk population for hematoma formation. Forty-seven percent of the patients presented postoperative hematomas beyond 6 h postoperatively, leading to the conclusion that 1-day surgery is not safe.

Perioperative and postoperative morbidity and mortality were studied in a series of 3,008 thyroidectomies. Compressive symptoms, frequent in substernal and cancerous goiters, were present in 11.0% of the patients, although a low rate of dyspnea (2.7%) was observed. In large goiters, some orotracheal intubations were difficult. In such cases, the transtracheal approach can also be difficult, so failure should be anticipated. Postoperative causes of respiratory obstruction included local hemorrhages, bilateral recurrent nerve palsies, and laryngeal edema. A tracheal collapse was not observed. These respiratory obstructions led to repeat surgery in 11 patients, tracheostomy in 3, and temporary reintubation with steroid therapy in 1. The recurrent laryngeal nerve, which may have been affected preoperatively, was found to be damaged postoperatively in 0.5% of the patients with benign goiters, compared to 10.6% of the patients with thyroid cancer. In this last group a bilateral palsy was observed in 3 cases with prolonged or extensive surgery. After these short-term orotracheal intubations (114 minutes on average), injuries of the airway caused by the endotracheal tube were found in 4.6% of the patients.

In this study, nitroglycerin offered a limited and clinically nonsignificant benefit for the prevention of post-ERC pancreatitis. Its use did not improve the technical success rate of ERC.

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