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29725

Assessment of Hypocalcemia Following Total Thyroidectomy for Benign Thyroid Lesions: To Be Continued or Not?

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Last updated: 30 Jan 2023

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Abstract

Background: Thyroidectomy is one of the most common operations performed worldwide by various surgeons whether general or endocrine surgeons. The rate of complications following thyroidectomy has been progressively decreasing yet it still carries significant morbidity if preoperative preparation and patient as well as procedure selection were not optimized. Objective: This study was designed to evaluate the problem of hypoparathyroidism following thyroid surgery and to assess the use of parathyroid hormone (PTH) level to predict patients with risk of postoperative hypocalcemia. Through this study, it was sought that we could reach a recommendation to rely on the routine technique of total thyroidectomy and utilization of PTH assay to allow for a safe and timely discharge of patients with normocalcemia and for the early identification of patients requiring treatment of post thyroidectomy hypocalcemia. Patients and Methods: This prospective study included 50 patients from two different hospitals undergoing total thyroidectomy to evaluate the efficacy of postoperative serum PTH and calcium (Ca) levels as an early and accurate predictor of post-thyroidectomy hypocalcemia. Ionized serum calcium as well as PTH were measured for each patient preoperatively, intraoperatively (just after skin closure), at every day postoperative when patient admitted and after one month in patients with hypocalcemia. Results: Our results showed an overall incidence of 18% of hypocalcemia after total thyroidectomy. Of them, only 6% developed symptomatic hypocalcemia. Transient hypocalcemia occurred in 4% of patients while permanent hypocalcemia affected 2%. Conclusion: Serum calcium concentrations have been the basis of identification of post-operative hypocalcemia, however this has been replaced by PTH levels being more sensitive and specific to the early prediction of transient as well as permanent hypocalcemia. Postoperative PTH; also known as quick PTH assay, level of < 12 pg/ml was found to have an overall accuracy of 98% in early prediction of permanent hypocalcemia in our study.

DOI

10.21608/ejhm.2019.29725

Keywords

Hypocalcemia Post Total Thyroidectomy, Benign Thyroid Lesions

Authors

First Name

Selim

Last Name

El Nemr

MiddleName

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Affiliation

Department of General Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt

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Orcid

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First Name

Mahmoud

Last Name

Reda

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Department of General Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt

Email

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City

-

Orcid

-

First Name

Mahmoud

Last Name

Hashish

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Department of Clinical Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt

Email

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City

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Orcid

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First Name

Hossam

Last Name

Amir

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Department of General Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt

Email

hosamamir500@yahoo.com

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-

Orcid

-

Volume

75

Article Issue

1

Related Issue

5149

Issue Date

2019-04-01

Receive Date

2019-04-06

Publish Date

2019-04-01

Page Start

2,105

Page End

2,111

Print ISSN

1687-2002

Online ISSN

2090-7125

Link

https://ejhm.journals.ekb.eg/article_29725.html

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https://ejhm.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=29725

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30

Type

Original Article

Type Code

606

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

The Egyptian Journal of Hospital Medicine

Publication Link

https://ejhm.journals.ekb.eg/

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Article

Created At

22 Jan 2023