Temporary hypocalcemia following total thyroidectomy at a tertiary care centre– a cohort study

Rajendran .C.V; Joby John; Unnikrishnan Govindan

Volume : VII, Issue : II, February - 2017

Temporary hypocalcemia following total thyroidectomy at a tertiary care centre– a cohort study

Rajendran . C. V, Joby John, Unnikrishnan Govindan

Abstract :

Background : Thyroid surgery is one of the commonest surgical procedures ,done for simple cosmesis to advanced malignancy all over the world. Hypocalcaemia is one of the many complications associated with thyroidectomy. Our study was conducted to describe the prevalence of temporary post–operative hypocalcemia and to describe its clinical manifestations that occur in patients undergoing thyroidectomy with a standardized approach. Materials and methods: We conducted this study in the department of surgery medical college Trivandrum during 2013–2014 after obtaining the institutional ethical clearance before conducting this study. Inclusion criteria: cases irrespective of benign or malignant admitted for thyroidectomy above 13 years of age in the department of surgery were included in the study. Exclusion criteria: Patients with previous neck surgeries and irradiation, patients with extra thyroidal extension per operatively, patients planned for neck dissection along with thyroidectomy were excluded from the study. Result : This study has shown that about 22 percent of the patients have temporary hypocalcemia in our institution. . Hypocalcaemic patients were more in 31–40 age group whereas in normocalcaemic group, the predominant group was 41–50. The main pathology in hypocalcaemic group, was papillary carcinoma followed by thyroiditis. Discussion: Our study has more hypocalcemia in females, and its occurrence is more common in patients with papillary carcinoma and thyroiditis. Moreover, in this study, anxiety was the most common and consistent symptom associated with biochemical evidence of hypocalcemia