The Reliability of the Tracheoesophageal Groove and the Ligament of Berry as Landmarks for Identifying the Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve: A Cadaveric Study and Meta-Analysis

Table 7

Subgroup analysis for position of a Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve located outside the Tracheoesophageal Groove.

	Number of studies (number of nerves)	Anterior: % (95% CI)	Anterolateral: % (95% CI)	Lateral: % (95% CI)	Posterior: % (95% CI)	: % (95% CI)	Cochran’s Q,; value
Overall	10 (1268)	45.7 (1.1–81.1)	6.0 (0–32.0)	37.4 (0–72.1)	10.9 (0–40.7)	99.4 (99.2–99.5)	<0.001
Cadaveric	7 (531)	47.0 (0–82.0)	7.5 (0–36.6)	26.1 (0–62.6)	19.5 (0–54.8)	98.8 (98.5–99.1)	<0.001
Intraoperative	3 (737)	41.7 (0–100)	2.7 (0–100)	54.2 (0–100)	0.4 (0–100)	99.5 (99.3–99.6)	<0.001
Europe	7 (1098)	23.0 (0–61.6)	3.3 (0–28.6)	59.8 (6.1–93.9)	13.9 (0–49.3)	99.3 (99.1–99.4)	<0.001
North America	3 (170)	85.6 (46.5–100)	10.4 (0–42.1)	0.6 (0–16.5)	3.3 (0–26.2)	95.3 (89.6–97.9)	<0.001
Right	5 (515)	38.0 (0–100)	3.2 (0–47.2)	50.7 (0–100)	8.1 (0–60.7)	99.0 (98.7–99.3)	<0.001
Left	5 (433)	27.1 (0–76.5)	6.3 (0–44.4)	56.7 (0–100)	9.9 (0–52.1)	98.5 (97.8–99.0)	<0.001
Sensitivity (> 100)	4 (1051)	35.7 (0–100)	0.8 (0–100)	42.7 (0–100)	20.8 (0–100)	99.7 (99.6–99.8)	<0.001