The Incidence of Hypocalcemia following Total Thyroidectomy: A Retrospective Study

Background : Hypocalcemia is one of the major complications following total thyroidectomy that can range in severity from asymptomatic to an acute life-threatening condition. Post-operative hypocalcemia is one of the causes of increased hospital stays and expenses for treatment. Objectives: To evaluate the hypocalcaemia in total thyroidectomy patients concerning the age and gender of patients, and also to evaluate the association between various histological types of thyroid diseases and hypocalcemia. Patients and methods : A retrospective study was conducted to estimate hypocalcaemia in 81 patients who underwent total thyroidectomy at a tertiary care medical institute in Southern India, from January 2016 to December 2016. Clinical, laboratory, radiological, and histopathology data were collected and assessed from the medical records department of the hospital. Results: In this study, all the hypocalcemic patients were females with a mean age of 40.36 Years. 43.2% developed temporary and 3.7% permanent hypocalcemia. Temporary hypocalcemia was more common in adenomatous goiter and permanent hypocalcemia in malignant thyroid diseases. Conclusion: We didn ’ t find any association between hypocalcemia and advancing age. Similarly, we didn ’ t find any association between temporary hypocalcemia to histopathological diagnosis but all the patients with permanent hypocalcemia had malignant disease.