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ORIGINAL ARTICLEMalaysian Journal of Medical Sciences, Vol. 10, No. 1, Jan 2003 (86-89)

REOPERATIVE THYROID SURGERYIN HOSPITAL UNIVERSITI SAINS MALAYSIA

Myint Tun, Khairuzi Salekan and Abdul Hamid Mat Sain

Department of SurgerySchool of Medical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia,

16150 Kubang Kerian, Kelantan, Malaysia.

From 1996 to 2001, 393 thyroidectomies were performed and 25 (6.4%) patientsunderwent reoperative thyroid surgery at Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia. Allreoperated patients had undergone one prior thyroid operation. All were femaleswith an average age of 39.1 years (18-61 years). The most frequent indication forreoperation was cancer in resected specimen of an originally misdiagnosedcarcinoma treated by partial thyroid resection. Final histological diagnosis of 25reoperations showed thyroid carcinoma in 22 (88%) cases and multinodular goiterin 3 cases. The overall interval between the initial and the reoperative proceduresranged from 3 weeks to 15 years. There was no post-operative mortality afterreoperation. Post-operative complications were discovered in 5 patients, as 3 (12%)of whom had transient hypocalcaemia, one (4%) had wound breakdown and one(4%) had permanent recurrent laryngeal nerve palsy. Reoperative thyroid surgeryis an uncommon operation with high complication rate.

Key words : Reoperative thyroid surgery, hypocalcaemia, recurrent laryngeal nerve palsy

Introduction

Reoperative thyroid surgery is generallyconsidered to be associated with high risk of damageto recurrent laryngeal nerve and the parathyroidglands. Patients with thyroid cancers are sometimesdenied repeat surgery for fear of increasedcomplications.

The purpose of this study is to analyse thehistopathologic findings and complication rate ofreoperative thyroid surgery at Hospital UniversitiSains Malaysia.

Material and methods

PatientsDuring the 6-year period from January 1996

to December 2001, 393 patients underwent primarythyroid operations at Hospital Universiti SainsMalaysia and reoperative thyroid surgery wasperformed on 25 (6.4%) patients. All patients hadundergone one prior thyroid surgical operation. Therecords of all these patients including history,

physical examination, operation, pathology reportsand follow up visits were reviewed.

Operative techniqueAll reoperative thyroidectomies were

performed using standard Kocher technique withanterior approach. Preoperative vocal cord functionwas routinely assessed by otorhinolaryngologist andpost-operatively by the anaesthetist at extubation.Mobilising of thyroid was done by the technique ofcapsular dissection (1). True capsule of thyroid isidentified and by working anteriorly to the recurrentlaryngeal nerves, the blood supply of parathyroidswere preserved. The recurrent laryngeal nerves wereroutinely identified. Frozen section was done onlyin selected cases with suspected papillary lesions infine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) and duringan intraoperative lymph node biopsy.

In all patients with thyroid carcinoma, totalbody radionucleide scanning was arranged onemonth after reoperative surgery. Radioiodineablation was given for the patients with residualthyroid remnant or distant metastases.

Submitted-10.7.2002, Revised-15.12.2002, Accepted-30.12.2002

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The results of reoperative surgery werecarefully examined with special emphasis onfeatures of hypoparathyroidism and recurrentlaryngeal nerve injury. Hypoparathyroidism isdefined as symptomatic hypocalcaemia needing oralor parenteral calcium. It is considered permanent ifthe patient needs calcium supplements to maintainserum calcium for more than 6 months.

The recurrent laryngeal nerve injury is notedby hoarseness or change in quality of voice withevidence of vocal cord paralysis documented bylaryngoscopy. It is regarded as transient if it recoverswithin 6 months. Persistence of recurrent laryngealnerve palsy after 6 months is regarded as permanent.

Results

Reoperative thyroid surgery was performedon 6.4% (25/393) patients after primary thyroidoperations. All patients were females with an averageage of 39.1 years (18-61 years). The most frequentinitial preoperative FNAC diagnosis were colloidnodule in 8, multinodular goiter in 7 and follicularneoplasm in 6 patients.

The rest included solitary nodule, thyroid cystand papillary carcinoma with lymph node

metastases. One patient underwent excision biopsyof cervical lymph nodes without FNAC, biopsyreport showed presence of and follicular carcinoma(Table 1).

The most frequent indication for reoperativethyroid surgery was the presence of carcinoma inthe permanent section after a history of partialthyroid resection less than a total thyroidectomy,usually a lobectomy (Table 1). Cancer was identifiedin these patients by permanent section of thespecimen inspite of negative FNAC or frozen biopsyresults. This group constituted 20 (80%) patientsout of 25 reoperations (Table 2). No patient withrecurrent thyrotoxicosis after primary surgery wasseen in the present study.

25 reoperative thyroid surgery performedwere completion thyroidectomy as excision of theresidual contralateral lobe in 17 patients, totalthyroidectomy in 4 patients, modified neckdissection in 2 patients, near total thyroidectomy inone patient and total thyroidectomy with lymph nodeexcision in one patient.

18 (72%) patients underwent reoperationwithin one year. For 22 patients with thyroid cancer,the interval of reoperation varies from 3 weeks to 4years. Two patients refused the completion

REOPERATIVE THYROID SURGERY IN HOSPITAL UNIVERSITI SAINS MALAYSIA

Table 1: Initial pre-operative and permanent section histologyin 25 reoperative thyroid surgery patients.

Table 2: Indications for 25 reoperative thyroidectomies fromyear 1996 to 2001.

Diagnosisi Pre-operative histologiBenign Malignant

Permanent sectionBenign Malignant

Colloid noduleMultinodular goiterFollicular neoplasmSolitary noduleCystic nodularPapillary carcinomaFollicular carcinoma

8761100

23

0000011

2

0300000

3

8461111

22

Malignant Cancer in permanent section 20 80 Lymph node metastases 2 8

Benign Recurrent multinodular goiter 3 12 ___ 25

Indication No. %

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thyroidectomy after right lobectomy with papillarycarcinoma. During the regular followup, consentfor reoperation was given and left lobectomy ascompletion thyroidectomy were performed 3 and 4years later respectively.

There were three patients with recurrentmultinodular goiters presented at 2, 11 and 15 yearsafter primary surgery. Two patients were treated bytotal thyroidectomy and one treated by near totalthyroidectomy.

There was no post-operative mortality in 25patients reviewed. Post-operative complicationswere seen in 5 patients (Table 3). Post-operativetransient hypocalcaemia was seen in 3 (12%)patients. One of these 3 patients had associated post-operative bleeding requiring urgent reexploration.One (4%) patient had wound breakdown and one(4%) patient had hoarseness of voice withdocumented permanent recurrent laryngeal nervepalsy.

All patients are still alive. One patient withfollicular cancer who had metastatic lesions in thevertebral spines recovered from paraplegia afterradioiodine ablation treatment.

Discussion

Total thyroidectomy is the treatment of choicefor well differentiated carcinoma as recommendedby many surgeons and endocrinologists. The roleof pre-operative FNAC is limited and the frozenbiopsies are also not infallible in diagnosis of thyroidlesions (2,3). At times well differentiated thyroidcancer is only detected by several sections of thyroidtissue in a permanent section. This study revealed

that cancer was discovered in 20 patients bypermanent histopathology sections of 23 patientswho initially had benign lesions by FNAC.

Presently, the surgeon is forced to do a limitedresection to a thyroid lobectomy in the primaryoperation. Further extensive surgery as totalthyroidectomy is deferred pending examination ofpermanent sections. 131I ablation of the residualthyroid tissue is commonly used to achieve a stateof total thyroidectomy.

The incidence of complications afterreoperative thyroid surgery varies from center tocenter. Beahrs and Vandertoll (4) reported 548secondary thyroidectomies performed up to the year1963 with high incidence of recurrent laryngealnerve injury (7.9%) and hypoparathyroidism(11.2%). The same authors mentioned thatcomplications were more likely when operation wasperformed for thyroid cancer. A swiss group reportedpermanent recurrent laryngeal damage at 3.5% to5.6% in 166 reoperations (5).

Reeve and coworkers in their 20 year periodof study on 408 secondary thyroidectomies up tothe year 1986 reported operative recurrent laryngealdamage as 1.5% compared to 0.3% in primarythyroid surgery. The incidence of permanenthypocalcaemia fell from 3.5% during the first 15years to 1.6% over the last 5 years using the capsulardissection method (6). Because of definite increasedmorbidity in reoperative thyroid surgery, radioiodineablation treatment of the thyroid remnant to replacecompletion thyroidectomy was suggested with65.8% success rate (7). Few reports also questionedthe rationale of total thyroidectomy whichjeopardises the recurrent laryngeal nerve and

Myint Tun, Khairuzi Salekan and Abdul Hamid Mat Sain

Table 3: Complications of reoperative thyroid surgery

1. Wound breakdown

2. Bleeding and transient hypocalcaemia

3. Hypocalcaemia (Transient)

4. Hypocalaemia (Transient)

5. Permanent recurrent laryngeal nerve palsy

Recurrentmultinodular goiter

Recurrent MNGmultinodular goiter

Papillary carcinoma

Papillary carcinoma

Papillary carcinoma

Total thyroidectomy

Total thyroidectomy

Total thyroidectomy

Completionthyroidectomy

Total thyroidectomy

15 year

11 year

18 year

13 weeks

2 year

Complication Diagnosis Operation Interval betweenprimary surgeryand reopperation

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parathyroid glands without clear demonstration ofsurvival benefit (8,9).

On the other hand, Auguste and Attie reportedno cases of permanent recurrent laryngeal nerveinjury or hypoparathyroidism after reoperative totalthyroidectomies (10). Completion thyroidectomywere reported to be a safe procedure with minimalmorbidity as shown by 1.7% permanent recurrentlaryngeal nerve injury and 1.7% hypoparathyroidism(11-13).

In general, complications of reoperativethyroid surgery are higher than primary surgicalprocedure. But a total thyroidectomy will removeresidual tumour in the remaining contralateral lobeof thyroid gland in 43% of patients (14). Totalthyroidectomy prevents the recurrent disease in amultinodular goiter. In addition total thyroidectomyallows the patient to be scanned for residual thyroidremnant and distant metastases.

The present study shows four percentpermanent recurrent laryngeal nerve injury andtwelve percent transient hypocalcaemia in patientsafter reoperative thyroid surgery. Complicationswere seen in both benign and malignant thyroiddiseases. Reoperative thyroid surgery is anuncommon operation with increased morbidity. Withcareful attention to operative details to preserve therecurrent laryngeal nerves and the parathyroidglands, the complications can be minimized to anacceptable level. At the same time the advantagesof total thyroidectomy has indicated that reoperativethyroid surgery is a feasible procedure in propercircumstances.

Correspondence:

Dr. Myint Tun, MBBS M.Med Sc. (Surgery)F.R.C.S.(Ed).School of Medical Sciences,Universiti Sains Malaysia,16150, Kubang Kerian, Kelantan,Malaysia.

References

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REOPERATIVE THYROID SURGERY IN HOSPITAL UNIVERSITI SAINS MALAYSIA