Authors : Rashmi R Bhat, Amar D N, Satheesha K S
DOI : 10.18231/j.ijashnb.2019.024
Volume : 5
Issue : 3
Year : 2019
Page No : 89-92
Background and Objective: Anatomy has been the basis if understanding the structure of the human body to the medical fraternity since the time immemorial and still it continues to do so. Though the medical fields has seen a vast change in the understanding of the diseases and the anatomy of the human body, yet, till date anatomical dissection of the human body is probably the best available method that is available to study in detail and see the first hand information regarding the variations of the structures of the human body without causing any harm to the human race.
In the past few years the has been a rise in the number of surgeries that are performed on the thyroid. In today’s day even if the goiter is small, the present day generation remove it soon more for cosmetic reasons as compared to the past when people would not bother even it grew to occupy the entire neck.
When we talk about the thyroid, most often importance is paid only to the recurrent laryngeal nerve, but in today’s scenario, in a country like India where litigations are on rise towards the medical fraternity has become the important to understand every single anatomical detail even of the minor structures that were once considered as not so important. The superior laryngeal nerve is one such nerve often referred as the neglected nerve as in thyroidectomy this nerve is not often paid as much attention to as its counterpart the recurrent laryngeal nerve. Identification of this nerve at times can be very difficult and a challenging one to the operating surgeon either because of its displacement as a result of gland enlargemet, or due to the fact. Though this nerve has not been given much clinical importance, the morbidy associated with the injury to this neglected nerve at the time of thyroid surgery can be the reason for a significant morbidity. Paralysis of this neglected nerve can cause a very significant disability, especially to those individuals whose occupation depends on the voice. The well-known legendary opera soprano, Amelita Galli-Curci, this neglected nerve at the time of thyroid surgery which is contributed to end her career as an opera singer. This nerve is one of the less studied or the neglected nerve, in view of this we conducted this study.
Keywords: Thyroidectomy, Superior laryngeal nerve, Neglected nerve, Paralysis.