Vulnerability of the recurrent laryngeal nerves at thyroidectomy

The Non-Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve: a meta-analysis and clinical considerations

“…A total of 53 studies ( n  = 53,577 total nerves; 33,571 Right RLNs and 20,006 Left RLNs) were included: 35 intraoperative, 17 cadaveric and 1 imaging (CT) (Reed, 1943; Wade, 1955; Hunt, Poole & Reeve, 1968; Stewart, Mountain & Colcock, 1972; Skandalakis et al, 1976; Papadatos, 1978; Proye et al, 1982; Flament, Delattre & Palot, 1983; Henry et al, 1988; Menck, Grüber & Lierse, 1990; Lekacos et al, 1992; Freschi et al, 1994; Moreau et al, 1998; Sasou, Nakamura & Kurihara, 1998; Sturniolo et al, 1999; Campos & Henriques, 2000; Raffaelli, Iacobone & Henry, 2000; Watanabe et al, 2001; Watanabe et al, 2016; Monfared, Gorti & Kim, 2002; Page, Foulon & Strunski, 2003; Hermans et al, 2003; Ardito et al, 2004; Toniato et al, 2004; Spartà et al, 2004; Sciumè et al, 2005; Shindo, Wu & Park, 2005; Beneragama & Serpell, 2006; Maranillo et al, 2008; Makay et al, 2008; Serpell, Yeung & Grodski, 2009; Lee et al, 2009; Sunanda, Tilakeratne & De Silva, 2010; Shao et al, 2010; Wang et al, 2011; Kaisha, Wobenjo & Saidi, 2011; Kandil et al, 2011; Pradeep, Jayashree & Harshita, 2012; Chiang et al, 2012; Tang et al, 2012; Benouaich et al, 2012; Asgharpour et al, 2012; Silva, Siqueira & Arruda, 2013; Donatini, Carnaille & Dionigi, 2013; Satoh et al, 2013; Cai et al, 2013; Hong, Park & Yang, 2014; Yang et al, 2014; Han, Bai & Lu, 2015; Dolezel et al, 2015; Iacobone et al, 2015; Buła et al, 2015; Ngo Nyeki et al, 2015; Barczyński et al, 2015). The dates of the included studies spanned the period from 1943 to 2016.…”

Voice Change Following Thyroid and Parathyroid Surgery

“…3 This wide range is likely to be at least partly the result of the inconsistent manner in which complications are reported. For example, some studies have reported complications as a percentage of operations performed, 6 others have specified them in terms of nerves at risk (each side of the neck places two nerves at risk of interoperative trauma), 1,7,8 and some do not specify the criterion they have adopted. 9,10 Additionally, studies have rarely specified details concerning the nature of the operation (eg, total or subtotal thyroidectomy, parathyroidectomy), or whether there have been intraoperative complications.…”

Non-Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve: Identification during Thyroid Surgery

“…Since then many surgeons have reported it during thyroidectomies [6], It is generally considered to be a very rare anomaly and it invariably occurs on the right side. The reported incidence varies from 0.3 to 4% [7][8][9], It is exceptional for the left inferior laryngeal nerve to be non recurrent; there have been 2 case reports [4], The origin of a non-recurrent nerve has always been cervical: at the level of the upper pole of the thyroid, the cricopharyngeal sphincter or the inferior thyroid artery. In both our cases, the nerve arose at the level of the upper pole of the thyroid gland.…”