Post-operative hypocalcemia in patients undergoing thyroid surgeries in tertiary care hospital: an observational study

Abstract

Background: Post-operative hypocalcaemia is one of the most common complications of thyroid and parathyroid surgery. Temporary hypocalcaemia has been reported to occur in 1.6-50% of the patients undergoing bilateral thyroid resection. Permanent hypoparathyroidism results in 0-13% of patients after bilateral thyroid surgery.Method: We have analyzed the data of 34 patients undergoing total thyroid surgery (with or without neck dissection) and completion thyroidectomy at the department of ENT and HNS, SMHS hospital over a period of 1.5 years between May 2019 to November 2020.Results: Hypocalcemia was found in a total of 15 patients out of 34 patients in the post-op period. Among the total patients who developed hypocalcemia 5 (14.7%) were males and 10 (29.4%) were females. Among the patients who developed post-op hypocalcemia 14 patients developed transient hypocalcemia (p>0.01) which is not statistically significant and 1 patient developed permanent hypocalcemia (p>0.01) which also has no statistical significance.Conclusions: The study suggests that female gender is a strong risk factor for developing post-operative hypocalcemia, other factors that play a role include difference in serum calcium levels in the perioperative period and type of surgery.