Assessment of the Seric Calcium and Parathormone Levels in Patients Underwent Hemithyroidectomy.

Abstract

\n Background and objective: Hypocalcemia is one of the main complications that patients undergoing thyroid surgery can suffer. We believe that there may be an impact on serum parathormone and calcium values, despite only one thyroid cell is manipulated in thyroid lobectomy. The former explanation is the reason because we carried out a measurement and analised a potential correlation between them. Methods: This is a prospective study of 53 patients underwent thyroid lobectomy. The serum parathormone value was determined in the preoperative period, 15 min after extraction of the surgical piece, 24 hours and 3 weeks after surgery. Ionic calcium was also measured at 6 hours, 24 hours and 3 weeks. Postoperative parathormone values were compared as well as their gradient descent respect to the postoperative calcium value. The appearance of the parathyroid glands was described during surgery. Results: In none of the patients did the ionic calcium drop below 4mg / dl. The decrease in preoperative calcemia compared with the values at 6 and 24 hours had statistical significance, there were no differences compared to 3 weeks experiment. An analogous trend was observed between the percentage values of decrease in parathormone and postoperative calcemia. Conclusions: Although the calcemia decreased after a lobectomy, it always remained above 4 mg / dl. We conclude that hemithyroidectomy is a safe technique regarding the appearance of hypocalcemia in the postoperative period.