• José Jacob Motos-Micó, Manuel Felices-Montes, and Teresa Abad-Aguilar.
• Servicio de Cirugía General y del Aparato Digestivo, Hospital Torrecárdenas, Almería, España. Electronic address: jacob_motos@hotmail.com.
• Cir Cir. 2017 Jul 1; 85 (4): 312-319.

BackgroundIntraoperative neuromonitoring of the recurrent laryngeal nerve in thyroid surgery facilitates the identification of anatomical structures in cervical endocrine surgery reducing the frequency of vocal cord paralysis.ObjectiveTo study the normal electrophysiological values of the vague and recurrent laryngeal nerves before and after thyroid surgery. To compare rates of injury of recurrent nerve before and after the introduction of the intraoperative neuromonitoring in thyroid surgery.Material And MethodsAn observational, descriptive and prospective study in which a total of 490 patients were included. Between 2003-2010, surgery was performed on 411 patients (703 nerves at risk) with systematic identification of recurrent laryngeal nerves. Between 2010-2011 neuromonitorization was also systematically performed on 79 patients.ResultsBefore the introduction of intraoperative neuromonitoring of 704 nerves at risk, there were 14 recurrent laryngeal nerve injuries. Since 2010, after the introduction of the intraoperative neuromonitoring in thyroid surgery, there has been no nerve injury in 135 nerves at risk.ConclusionsWe consider the systematic identification of the recurrent laryngeal nerve is the 'gold standard' in thyroid surgery and the intraoperative neuromonitoring of nerves can never replace surgery but can complement it.Copyright © 2016 Academia Mexicana de Cirugía A.C. Publicado por Masson Doyma México S.A. All rights reserved.

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