Our meta-analysis suggests that the use of a hemostatic agent in thyroid surgery yields minimal advantages for the management of perioperative bleeding risk.

Background: Performance of thyroid surgery as a same day surgery procedure has been a controversial topic. This study aimed to compare the safety and efficacy of outpatient thyroid surgery with inpatient thyroid surgery by meta-analysis of current literature.Methods: Articles were identified from the following keyword searches: outpatient thyroidectomy/thyroid surgery, same day thyroidectomy/thyroid surgery. Outcomes included perioperative complications including recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN) injury, hypocalcemia, and readmissions. Data were extracted following review of appropriate studies by authors and random effects models were used.Results: 34 potentially relevant publications were identified and 14 studies fulfilled the predetermined inclusion criteria, totaling 10,478 patients, 4,565 of whom were discharged the same day following thyroid surgery. There was no difference in malignancy rate between the two groups (95% CI, 0.84-2.31; P=0.196).Inpatient group were 2.23 times (95% CI, 1.36-3.36; P=0.001) more likely to develop transient RLN injury and 2.32 times (95% CI, 1.06-5.06; P=0.034) more likely to have documented transient hypocalcemia compared to outpatients. Inpatient groups were 2.10 times (95% CI, 1.33-3.33; P=0.002) more likely to have documented other complications. The two groups also had similar readmission rates (95% CI, 0.71-1.41; P=1.000).Conclusions: Our meta-analysis suggests that discharging selective patients the same day after a thyroid surgery is as safe, feasible, and efficacious as admitting them for observation. Admitting patients after thyroid surgery is associated with higher reported risk of complications.

We present a rare complication of endoscopic staple repair of a pharyngeal diverticulum related to prior anterior cervical spine surgery. A 70-year-old male developed a symptomatic pharyngeal diverticulum 2 years after an anterior cervical fusion that was repaired via endoscopic stapler-assisted diverticulectomy. He initially had improvement of his symptoms after the stapler-assisted approach. Three years later, the patient presented with dysphagia and was found to have erosion of the cervical hardware into the pharyngeal lumen at the site of the prior repair. We present the first reported case of late hardware erosion into a pharyngeal diverticulum after endoscopic stapler repair.

Background: Several reports have proposed that increased vascular flow on color Doppler sonography may be associated with malignancy in thyroid nodules. Others have described no correlation between the presence of flow and risk of malignancy. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the vascularity of a thyroid nodule can aid in the prediction of malignancy by performing a meta-analysis of the current literature.Methods: Independent reviewers conducted a systematic review of publications from PubMed, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Review using the following keyword searches: "vascular thyroid nodule", and "vascular malignant thyroid nodule". Outcomes included vascular flow pattern, nodule size, calcifications, echogenicity, margins, and shape. Data were extracted following review of appropriate studies, and outcome differences were calculated using analysis of variance and the Bonferroni method.Results: Eighty-nine publications were identified and 14 prospective studies met inclusion criteria totaling 4,154 thyroid nodules, 1,419 (34%) of which were malignant. Thirty-three percent of malignant thyroid nodules had no vascular flow, while 17% had peripheral and 50% had internal vascular flow. There was no significant difference in vascular flow (95% CI: −14.329, 4.257), or peripheral vascular flow rate between malignant and benign thyroid nodules (95% CI: −29.254, 4.313). Also, there was no significant difference in internal vascularity between malignant and benign thyroid nodules (95% CI: −72.067, 2.824).Conclusions: It appears that utilization of vascular flow on color Doppler sonography may not accurately predict malignancy in thyroid nodules. Further studies are warranted to investigate the predictive role of increased vascularity in diagnosing suspicious thyroid nodules.

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