Thyroid Surgery for Elderly Patients: Are They at Increased Operative Risks?

Table 3

A comparison of complications between different elderly surgical series.

Study/age group	Surgically related complications						Non-surgically related complications
	Temporary VC palsy	Permanent VC palsy	Temporary hypocalcemia	Permanent hypocalcemia	Hematoma	Wound infection
Bliss et al. [3]
50–60	NA	1.4%	5%	0.2%	0.9%^#	0.6%
61–74		1.6%	5.2%	0.1%	1.2%^#	0.4%	NA
Elderly		1.8%	3.9%	0.4%	0.9%^#	0.4%
Passler et al. [16]
Geriatric	3.6%	1.05%	13.6%	2.3%	5.5%	1.8%	3.6%^∧∧
Young	3.3%	0.26%	14.1%	5.4%	3.5%	0.4%	0.6%^∧∧
Lang and Lo [5]
Elderly	3.6%	0.9%	14.5%	1.8%	1.8%	0%	5.5%^∧
Young	3.3%	0.6%	19%	1.2%	0.8%	0%	0.4%^∧
Sosa et al. [6]
Superelderly	3.6% ^*						6.6%^*
Elderly	2.4% ^*						4.3% ^*
45–64	1.2% ^*						2.2% ^*
18–44	1.1% ^*						1.5%^*
Mekel et al. [15]
Elderly	5.5%^*						18.9% ^*
18–79	2.5%^*						5.2%^*
Grogan et al. [4]	(Overall complications)
Superelderly	5%^*
Elderly	2.2% ^*
16–64	1% ^*
Syebt et al. [10]
Elderly	2.9%	0%	6.8%	0%
Young	3.9%	0%	5.8%	0%	NA	NA	NA

^*Statistically significant (𝑃<0.01).
VC: vocal cord.
^# Included haematoma with evacuation.
^∧Included pneumonia, cardiac complications, and perforated peptic ulcer.
^∧∧Included respiratory distress, pneumonia, and paralysis of brachial plexus.