Morbidity of Prophylactic Node Dissection in Thyroid Cancer

Objective: Determine if the implementation of prophylactic neck dissection of the central compartment as a routine procedure increases the risk of injury over the recurrent laryngeal nerve and parathyroid glands in patients with clinical stage T1N0M0 compared with patients who underwent total thyroidectomy only.Method: Retrospective study of 46 patients undergoing total thyroidectomy plus prophylactic central lymph node dissection for papillary cancer with preoperative staging T1N0M0 from March 2008 to July 2010. The outcomes were compared with 107 patients in the same conditions and period undergoing total thyroidectomy alone.Results: The 2 groups (with and without neck dissection) were similar in age, gender, pathologic features, and completeness of thyroidectomy. Of the 46 patients who underwent neck dissection, 6 (13.0%) had vocal fold paralysis with one (2.1%) permanent. In patients who underwent only total thyroidectomy, 9 (8.4%) had transient paralysis, with no cases of permanent paralysis. Regardi...