Intermittent Neuromonitoring of the Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve

Over time, thyroid surgery has become more sophisticated with greater focus on quality outcomes, particularly with regard to the laryngeal nerve and voice quality. Recurrent laryngeal nerve injury is one of the most feared complications of thyroidectomy. The gold standard to avert this complication is identification and preservation of the nerve. Unfortunately, a visually intact nerve does not always correlate with a functional nerve. Intraoperative nerve monitoring is able to provide real-time electromyography (EMG) data, thus allowing endocrine surgeons to predict the postoperative nerve functionality as well as to help with intraoperative surgical decision-making.