Context:
Thyroid surgery may have severe postoperative complications; however, there is a lack of national data on its outcomes in Saudi Arabia.
Aims:
The aim of this study was to improve practice and develop efficient pre- and postoperative data.
Settings and Design:
A retrospective review of the medical files of 277 patients undergoing thyroidectomy, including total thyroidectomy, hemithyroidectomy, and completion thyroidectomy, for various indications at a single center from January 2016 to December 2019 was performed.
Materials and Methods:
The demographic and histopathological data and surgical outcomes were recorded.
Statistical Analysis:
Only descriptive statistics were used.
Results:
A total of 198 (71.4%) patients were female and 79 (28.5%) were male. Benign lesions were observed in 65.6% of the patients, while 34.4% of the patients had malignant lesions. Papillary thyroid carcinoma was the most common malignant pathology, followed by follicular thyroid carcinoma, medullary carcinoma, and mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue lymphoma. The total complication rate was 17.3%, and 81.2% of the complications occurred in females. Temporary hypocalcemia developed in 9% of the patients and permanent hypocalcemia in 2.9%. A postoperative hematoma occurred in 1.1%. Temporary and permanent recurrent laryngeal nerve injuries were recorded in 2.9% and 1.4% of the patients, respectively.
Conclusions:
Thyroidectomy is a safe and effective surgical procedure, and the results obtained in this study were similar to data in the literature. Auditing and reporting of the surgical outcomes of thyroidectomy at our institute and other national centers could help establish national guidelines that will improve these outcomes and ensure patient safety.
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