[Problems after thyroid gland surgery in Burkina Faso, 83 cases]

Management of thyroid tumor can be problematic in developing countries due to poor diagnostic and therapeutic facilities. This is true in Burkina Faso where there are no facilities for radioisotope scans and intraoperative biopsy is usually unfeasible due to a shortage of histologists. The purpose of this retrospective analysis of the files of 83 patients who underwent surgery of the thyroid between January 1988 and December 1993 at the National Hospital Center of Ouagadougou was to obtain information necessary to define suitable pre-, per-, and post-operative strategies for these conditions. The mean delay to consultation for the 83 patients studied was 8 years. The fact that dysphonia and/or dysphagia was present at the first examination in 68 cases and that paralysis of the recurrent laryngeal nerve was observed in 17 cases testifies to the advanced stage at which patients were seen. Cancer was confirmed in only 3 of the 41 surgical specimens that were examined (7.3%). In cases involving only one nodule with no signs of malignancy, resection of the nodule is justifiable (18.1% of cases). In other cases radical resection is indicated either by lobo-isthmectomy or subtotal thyroidectomy for diffuse or multinodular goiter (74.7% of cases) or by total thyroidectomy (7.2% of cases). The immediate postoperative period was marked by the occurrence of hemorrhage (n = 7), transient paralysis of the recurrent laryngeal nerve (n = 4), and infection of the surgical wound (n = 5). There were 2 deaths.