Experience of continuous intraoperative nerve monitoring in thyroid surgery

Abstract

In thyroid surgery, is important to identify and preserve the recurrent nerve. We performed continuous intraoperative neuromonitoring of the vagus and recurrent laryngeal nerve with the aim of reducing the risk of recurrent nerve palsy. We reviewed six cases of thyroid cancer. The pathological diagnosis of these tumors was papillary carcinoma （five cases） and undifferentiated carcinoma （one case）. Two patients were male and four were female. The mean age of the patients was 60.2 years （with an age range of 40-83）. Total thyroidectomy was performed in five cases, and right thyroidectomy was performed in one case. The results of postoperative laryngologic findings and intraoperative evaluation were consistent, suggesting that the reliability of CIONM was high. Particularly, when an immature doctor performs the thyroid surgery, CIONM is thought to be useful for protecting the recurrent laryngeal nerve.