Thyroidectomy

A thyroidectomy involves the surgicalremoval all or part of the thyroid gland. Surgeons often perform a thyroidectomy when a patient has thyroid canceror some other condition of the thyroid gland(such as hyperthyroidism).

The thyroid produces several hormones, such as thyroxine(T4), triiodothyronine(T3) and calcitonin.

After the removal of a thyroid patients usually take prescribed oral synthetic thyroid hormones to prevent the most serious manifestations of the resultant hypothyroidism.

Less extreme variants of thyroidectomy include:

• "hemithyroidectomy" (or "unilateral lobectomy") -- removing only half of the thyroid
• "isthmectomy" -- removing the band of tissue (or isthmus) connecting the two lobes of the thyroid

A "thyroidectomy" should not be confused with a "thyroidotomy" (or "thyrotomy"), which is a cutting into (-otomy) the thyroid, not a removal (-ectomy) of it. A thyroidotomy can be performed to get access for a median laryngotomy, or to perform a biopsy. (Although technically a biopsy involves removing some tissue, because the volume removed is miniscule, it is more frequently categorized as an -otomy than an -ectomy.)

Complications

1. Hypothyroidismin up to 50% of patients after ten years

2. Laryngeal nervedamamge in about 1% of patients: Unilateral damage results in a hoarse voice. Bilateral damage presents as laryngeal obstruction on removal of the tracheal tube and is a sugical emergency: an emergency tracheostomy must be performed

3. Hypoparathyroidismin about 1% of patients

4. Haemorrhage

5. Thyrotoxic crisis

External link

• Yahoo

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It uses material from the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thyroidectomy Wikipedia article Thyroidectomy.