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RACS ASC 2024

Thyroid cancer patients’ self-reported voice changes after thyroidectomy are not predicted by intraoperative nerve monitoring.Thyroid cancer patients’ self-reported voice changes after thyroidectomy are not predicted by intraoperative nerve monitoring.

Verbal Presentation

Verbal Presentation

4:40 pm

07 May 2024

Bealey 5

RESEARCH PAPERS

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Institution: The Alfred - Melbourne, Australia

Purpose: Subjective voice change after thyroidectomy is common and affects patients’ quality of life, however vocal cord palsy is rare. We aimed to analyse self-reported voice changes using Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMS) data from The Australia New Zealand Thyroid Cancer Registry (ANZTCR) and to identify any relationship between PROMS and the use of intraoperative nerve monitoring (NIM). Methodology: Patients from the ANZTCR with PROMS using the EORTC QLQ- THY34 survey were included for analysis. Voice scores (VS) were calculated using a calculation and transformed into a linear score between 0-100. Low numbers indicate a good voice score. Results: 860 patients from the registry had PROMS data. NIM was used in 625/787 (79.4%) of cases, and loss of signal was uncommon in 28/620 (4.5%). The vocal cord palsy rate was low - temporary 24/785 (3.1%) and permanent 1/785 (0.1%). The majority of patients had good voice scores, with 542 patients having a score between the range of 1-20. There was no difference in mean voice score whether NIM was used or not 16.23 vs 18.75 (p=0.226). Conclusion: Patient voice outcome is good after thyroid cancer surgery and vocal cord palsy rate is low. There was no association between NIM use and voice score. This is the first study of prospectively collected patient reported voice scores after thyroid cancer surgery in Australasia.

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Dr Stephanie Manning - , Prof Jonathan Serpell - , A/Prof James C Lee -