20 Jun 2024Case Report
Double Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve with Thyroid Carcinoma
Affiliations
Article Info
1 Department of General Surgery, Prof. Dr. Cemil Tascioglu City Hospital, University of Health Sciences, 34384 Istanbul, Türkiye
2 Department of General Surgery, Sultan II. Abdulhamid Han Training and Research Hospital, University of Health Sciences, 34380 Istanbul, Türkiye
Published: 20 Jun 2024
Copyright © 2024 The Author(s).
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Abstract
The most important and serious complication of thyroid surgery is recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN) injury, and it has been noted that this risk increases considerably in the presence of anatomical variations. Double recurrent laryngeal nerve (DRLN) is very rare among RLN anatomical variations. There are only a few case reports on DRLN in the literature It is crucial to possess surgical expertise and ensure complete visualization of the nerve to minimize the likelihood of RLN injury. Intraoperative nerve monitoring (IONM) is particularly useful in identifying anatomical variations. In a 54-year-old woman undergoing diagnostic left lobectomy+isthmectomy, a left DRLN was identified during intraoperative exploration and meticulous nerve exploration with the assistance of IONM monitoring verified that the impulse conduction in both branches was identical. The surgical procedure was successfully performed without causing any harm to the nerve. Based on the case reports in the literature and our experience with this patient, we believe that surgical expertise and the utilization of IONM can decrease RLN nerve damage and reveal its anatomical variations during thyroid surgery.
Keywords
- double recurrent laryngeal nerve
- thyroid
- carcinoma
- nerve
- intraoperative nerve monitoring