Need Your Thyroid Removed? Seek A Surgeon With 25+ Cases a Year

Contact: Samiha Khanna Phone: 919-419-5069 Email: samiha.khanna@duke.edu https://www.dukehealth.org FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE on Monday, March 14 DURHAM, N.C. -- A new study from Duke Health suggests that patients who need to have their thyroid gland removed should seek surgeons who perform 25 or more thyroidectomies a year for the least risk of complications. Thyroidectomy is one of the most common operations performed in the U.S, often due to cancer, over-activity, or enlargement of the gland, which is located at the base of the throat and produces hormones that regulate metabolism. But most consumers would be surprised to learn that about half (51 percent) of surgeons who perform thyroidectomy do so just once a year, according to the study published in the Annals of Surgery. “This is a very technical operation, and patients should feel empowered to ask their surgeons how many procedures they do each year, on average,” said Julie A. Sosa, M.D., senior author and chief of endocrine surgery at Duke. “Surgeons have an ethical responsibility to report their case numbers. While this is not a guarantee of a positive outcome, choosing a more experienced surgeon certainly can improve the odds that the patient will do well.” Although total thyroidectomy is generally safe, it can cause life-altering complications that were seen in some study patients, such as bleeding, problems with the parathyroid glands, and damage to the laryngeal nerve that can lead to difficulty speaking, br...
Source: DukeHealth.org: Duke Health Features - Category: Pediatrics Tags: Duke Medicine Source Type: news