Effect of thyroidectomy with totally preserved recurrent laryngeal nerve on the objective vocal functions

OBJECTIVE: To study the effect of thyroidectomy with totally preserved recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN) on the objective vocal functions. METHODOLOGY: It is a prospective pilot study of 10 patients undergoing thyroid surgery on whom to study the effect of thyroidectomy with totally preserved RLN on the objective vocal functions. Patient history and demographic data were collected at the time of admission and in each period of assessment average fundamental frequency; absolute jitter, shimmer, and others were measured. Furthermore, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) repeated measurements statistical technique was used to test the difference among the 3 time period of measurements and P < 0.05 was considered significant (α = 0.05). RESULTS: The mean age was 39.5 ± 3.31 years. There were two males and eight females. Total thyroidectomy was performed on eight patients while one had left hemithyroidectomy and one completion thyroidectomy. Histopathology revealed papillary thyroid carcinoma in 50%. 34 acoustic voice analysis parameters were measured using the multidimensional voice program, which showed no significant differences at the end of 1(st) and 3(rd) month post-operative as compared to the pre-operative measurements. There was no significant difference in measurement for each factor over the time (P > 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: All the acoustic analysis parameters for 10 patients showed no significant differences in 1(st) and 3(rd) month postoperatively as compared to the pre-operative values. However, due to small sample size, our study may have failed to detect any significant difference.