Identifying Intraoperative Nerve Monitoring in Thyroid Surgery

To the Editor I read with interest the article titled "Analysis of Variations in the Use of Intraoperative Nerve Monitoring in Thyroid Surgery" by Al-Qurayshi et al. This was a cross-sectional study on the impact of patient demographic factors and surgeon and hospital thyroidectomy volume on the use of intraoperative nerve monitoring (IONM), using the State Inpatient Database for Florida, New York, and Washington. They found that IONM was used in only 8.3% of thyroidectomies. White patients were more likely to undergo IONM than racial minority patients. They also found that use of IONM was higher in thyroidectomies performed by low-volume surgeons, and in low-volume hospitals.

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