PREVENTION OF YATROGENIC DAMAGES OF THE LARYNGEAL NERVES IN TRADITIONAL AND MINIMALLY INVASIVE THYROID SURGERY

Abstract

Objective. To assess the effectiveness of using the intraoperative neuromonitoring for conventional and minimally invasive surgical interventions on the thyroid gland for the prevention of the laryngeal nerve damage. Material and methods. For achieving this goal it was performed the retrospective analysis of surgical treatment of 310 patients with thyroid gland diseases, and 54 patients were selected, which were divided into 2 groups matched by sex and age, the nature of thyroid pathology and volume of surgical intervention: in the first (main, n = 27) operations were carried out using intraoperative neuromonitoring, in the second (control, n = 27) - visual monitoring of the laryngeal nerves was performed. The survey was performed according to the Russian and international clinical guidelines. Laryngoscopy was performed for all patients before operation and for patients with impaired phonation function - after it. «NIM-Neuro® 3.0» device with special armored endotracheal tubes preloaded with circular (detecting), as well as stimulating electrodes for searching and continuous monitoring of laryngeal nerves was used for intraoperative neuromonitoring during the operation. Results of the study. Traditional interventions were conducted on the 6 patients, minimally invasive nonendoscopic surgical - on 25, video-assisted - on 23. The exterior branch of the superior laryngeal nerve has found in 25 (92.6%) patients of the main group and 8 of the (29.6%) control group. Recurrent laryngeal nerve was identified in 27 (100%) patients of the 1st group and in 26 (96.3%) patients of the 2nd group by visual inspection. In the main group there are no cases of intraoperative fixation of the loss or signal attenuation during the laryngeal nerves monitoring, which is proved by the absence of single- and double-sided paresis of the larynx in the postoperative period. Only in 2 patients there was functional dysphonia on hypotonic type. In the control group the laryngeal dysfunction in the form of functional dysphonia (n = 1), paresis (n = 1) and paralysis (n = 1) has occurred in 3 patients. Conclusion. It has been found out that intraoperative neuromonitoring is an effective additional method of neural structures detecting, and it does not substitute the anatomic visualization of laryngeal nerves. intraoperative neuromonitoring in patients with high risk of complications (repeated operations on the thyroid gland, thyroid cancer with extrathyroidal proliferation and regional metastases) can reduce the incidence of paresis and paralysis of the larynx. All minimally invasive interventions on the thyroid gland should be accompanied by the intraoperative neuromonitoring of laryngeal nerves (8 figs, 1 table, bibliography: 15 refs).