Application experience of intraoperative neuromonitoring in thyroidectomy

The aim of this study is to summarize the experience of intraoperative neuromonitoring system for monitoring and protection of recurrent laryngeal nerve during thyroid surgery.

There were 220 cases in this study, male 53, female 167, mean age 38.2 years old. 85 cases in the study had thyroid cancer, 19 cases had thyroid benign tumor, 90 cases had thyroid goiter, 3 cases had Hashimoto's diseases, and 23 cases had hyperthyroidism. The tumor diameters were over than 5 cm in 113 cases. In the procedure, two recording needle electrodes were put into cricothyroid muscle; one stimulator electrodes was explored in tracheo-asophageal groove, if recurrent laryngeal nerves were right there or near, doctors could see the electromyogram and hear the toot honk. With careful dissection, recurrent laryngeal nerve could be found out till explored into the larynx site.

207 cases (278 sizes) of 220 were finished, electromyogram was not drawn out in 13 cases; 9 cases were false-negative because of system and anesthesia questions; needle electrodes cannot be put in properly in 4 cases because of cricothyroid muscle cancer invasion. No permanent recurrent laryngeal nerve paralysis occurred, 2 cases with transient nerve paralysis recovered in one month.

The intraoperative neuromonitoring system can avoid damage of the recurrent laryngeal nerves when exposing the recurrent laryngeal nerve in the whole operation, therefore, with less medical complications.