title: Factors affecting hypocalcaemia following total thyroidectomy: a prospective study.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  After thyroidectomy hypocalcaemia is the most significant complication for clinicians. In this study, we investigated the factors associated with development of hypocalcaemia after thyroidectomy.
  
  
  METHODS
  We investigated the patients prospectively for age, gender, preoperative diagnosis, hormonal status, operative time, operating surgeon, existence of parathyroid gland injury at the operation, parathyroid gland auto-transplantation, preoperative use of anti-thyroid drugs and amount of bleeding at the operation. After operation in 1 and 2 days, serum calcium and phosphor, and in the 1 day parathyroid hormone values were evaluated. The chi-square test was applied in the analysis of categorical variables. Logistic regression model was used to determine the risk of hypocalcaemia in the univariate analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Hypocalcaemia developed in 47 of 196 patients. Female gender, preoperative diagnosis of thyroid cancer and toxic nodular goitre, <3cm nodule size, parathyroid injury and auto-transplantation and low vitamin D levels were factors found to be associated with hypocalcaemia in the Logistic regression analysis.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The factors associated with hypocalcaemia were defined to be "gender, preoperative diagnosis, parathyroid gland injury, nodule size and vitamin D deficiency", it is a multifactorial problem and it would not be proper to define a few etiological factors.
authors.affiliation: Department of General Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Ataturk University, Erzurum, Turkey.
authors.forename: Bunyami
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Ozogul
authors.affiliation: Department of General Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Ataturk University, Erzurum, Turkey.
authors.forename: Mufide Nuran
authors.initials: MN
authors.lastname: Akcay
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Ataturk University, Erzurum, Turkey.
authors.forename: Gungor
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Akcay
authors.affiliation: Department of General Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Ataturk University, Erzurum, Turkey.
authors.forename: Ozgur Hakan
authors.initials: OH
authors.lastname: Bulut
keywords: Thyroidectomy; hypocalcaemia