RESEARCH ARTICLE


Bi Lateral Vocal Cord Paralysis Post Thyroidectomy Causing Total Airway Obstruction: Case Report



Surbhi D. Mundada*, Kundan S. Gosavi, Naveed J. Khan
Department of Anaesthesia and Critical Care, Grant Medical College and Sir. J. J. Groups of Hospitals, Mumbai – 8, India


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Creative Commons License
© 2011 Mundada et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Department of Anaesthesia and Critical Care, Sir. J. J. Group of hospitals Address: 51- Rohini bldg, NOFRA Colaba (Navy nagar) Mumbai- 400005; Tel: 9869322731; E-mail: sur_mahe@hotmail.com


Abstract

Thyroid surgery in recent years is generally considered quite safe. Better preoperative preparation and proper surgical techniques of thyroidectomy have minimized complications to less than 2-3%. Bilateral recurrent nerve palsy is the rarest of all complications, with a reported incidence varying between 0.4% to 14%, but can be potentially fatal if missed [1, 2]. We report a case in which the patient experienced life threatening stridor and severe dyspnoea requiring re-intubation few minutes after extubation.

Keywords: Vocal cord palsy, total thyroidectomy, airway obstruction.