Factors Affecting Hypocalcaemia Following Total Thyroidectomy: A Prospective Study

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: After thyroidectomy hypocalcaemia is the most significant complication for clinicians. In this study, we investigated the factors associated with development of hypocalcaemia after thyroidectomy. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We investigated the patients prospectively for age, gender, preoperative diagnosis, hormonal status, operative time, operating surgeon, existence of parathyroid gland injury at the operation, parathyroid gland auto-transplantation, preoperative use of anti-thyroid drugs and amount of bleeding at the operation. After operation in 1 and 2 days, serum calcium and phosphor, and in the 1 day parathyroid hormone values were evaluated. The chi-square test was applied in the analysis of categorical variables. Logistic regression model was used to determine the risk of hypocalcaemia in the univariate analysis. RESULTS: Hypocalcaemia developed in 47 of 196 patients. Female gender, preoperative diagnosis of thyroid cancer and toxic nodular goitre, <3cm nodule size, parathyroid injury and auto-transplantation and low vitamin D levels were factors found to be associated with hypocalcaemia in the Logistic regression analysis. CONCLUSION: The factors associated with hypocalcaemia were defined to be "gender, preoperative diagnosis, parathyroid gland injury, nodule size and vitamin D deficiency", it is a multifactorial problem and it would not be proper to define a few etiological factors.