Surgical treatment of Graves disease

Financial support: None. Conflicts of interest: No conflicts of interest declared concerning the publication of this article. Submitted: July 31, 2018. Accepted: January 09, 2019. The study was carried out at Disciplina de Cirurgia de Cabeça e Pescoço, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brasil. Abstract Introduction: There is no proved superiority between surgical and non-surgical treatment for Graves’ disease up to now. Objective: To evaluate our surgical experience in the treatment of Graves’ disease. Materials and Methods: A total of 96 patients with Graves’ disease underwent thyroidectomy from 2002 to 2012. All patients were operated on under euthyroid condition, achieved by the use of antithyroid drugs associated to beta-blockers. Follow-up period ranged from 1 to 10 years. Results: All patients developed hypothyroidism. There was no recurrence. The main complications observed were transient hypoparathyroidism in 23 cases (24%), transient hoarseness in 7 patients (7%), hematoma in the immediate post-operative period in 2 cases (2%) and permanent hypoparathyroidism in 1 patient (1%). No death was observed in this series. The time of hospitalization varied from 1 to 5 days and 78% of the patients were discharged in the first postoperative day. Conclusion: Thyroidectomy is effective and safe, with low complication rates.