[Intra- and postoperative complications in surgery of the thyroid gland]

The authors studied the inter- and postoperative complications arising in a series of 690 consecutive interventions on thyroid. The results showed a cipher mortality and a 3% aggregate morbidity. In 0.9% of cases, compressive hematomata in the thyroid loggia, collapse of the tracheal wall due to tracheomalacia or bilateral paralysis of the vocal cords determined an acute respiratory stoppage. 1.4% of the treated patients suffered from alterations in the motility of the vocal cords, ascribable to damage of the recurrent nerves. 0.9% of cases showed a postoperative parathyroid insufficiency, the nature of which, however, was always temporary. The incidence of complications, in the whole, resulted significantly higher in the patients undergoing iterative surgery, in respect of those operated on the first time.