Intraoperative nerve monitoring (IONM) is increasingly performed during thyroid surgery.
To examine the use of IONM and its association with patient demographic characteristics and surgeon volume.
A cross-sectional analysis used the State Inpatient Databases from January 1, 2010, to December 31, 2011, to assess patient demographic characteristics and surgeon volume. Available 30-day readmission data for all adult patients (aged ≥18 years) who underwent thyroidectomy in Florida, New York, and Washington were included. Follow-up was completed on December 31, 2011, and data were analyzed from March 11, 2015, to February 17, 2016.
Use of IONM and incidence of postoperative vocal cord paralysis.
A total of 17 268 patients undergoing thyroidectomy were included (20.3% men; 79.7% women; mean [SD] age, 53.0 [15.1] years), of whom 1433 patients (8.3%) had IONM. Patients who were significantly less likely to undergo IONM included black patients (185 [7.9%]; adjusted odds ratio [AOR], 0.79; 95% CI, 0.65-0.97) and those with Medicare (382 [8.4%]; AOR, 0.81; 95% CI, 0.69-0.94) or Medicaid (125 [5.5%]; AOR, 0.59; 95% CI, 0.48, 0.74) health coverage. Black patients had a higher prevalence of vocal cord paralysis compared with white patients (37 [1.6%] vs 138 [1.3%]; AOR, 1.64; 95% CI, 1.11-2.43) in a multivariate model that also controlled for IONM use. Low-volume surgeons were more likely to use IONM (1199 [9.2%] vs 234 [5.5%]; AOR, 1.76; 95% CI, 1.48-2.09). However, patients treated by low-volume surgeons had a higher risk for vocal cord paralysis compared with those treated by high-volume surgeons (187 [1.4%] vs 26 [0.6%]; AOR, 2.47; 95% CI, 1.61-3.80). The risk for vocal cord paralysis was not associated with the performance of IONM (AOR, 0.74; 95% CI, 0.48-1.16) or the type of thyroidectomy (AOR, 1.04; 95% CI, 0.75-1.44).
Disparities in the use of IONM are based on demographic factors of the patients and surgeon volume. Intraoperative nerve monitoring appears to be used less in black patients or those with Medicare health coverage and is not associated with the risk for vocal cord paralysis.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 5. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 03 July 2016.
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#7,956,273
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Outputs from JAMA Otolaryngology–Head & Neck Surgery
#1,887
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#100,029
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Outputs of similar age from JAMA Otolaryngology–Head & Neck Surgery
#34
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Altmetric has tracked 27,348,485 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 70th percentile.
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