treatment outcome of total thyroidectomy for multinodular goiter

Background: in cosmetic problems, compressive symptoms, toxicity and suspicion of malignancy, the best choice of multinodular goiter treatment are surgery. there are several surgical methods. here we managed to describe the results of total thyroidectomy method for multi nodular goiter surgeries. patients and methods: in this cross sectional study, from january 2009 to january 2011, 101 included patients with multi nodular goiter underwent total thyroidectomy. outcome assessment was performed for two weeks, 1 month, 2 months, 10 months and 20 months after surgery for each patient. all data were analyzed with using spss-19 software. results: of 101 included cases, with mean age of 47.1 ± 12.9 years, 10 cases were male and 91 cases were female. bilateral gland involvement showedin88.11%.thefineneedleaspirationresultswerenegativeformalignancyin41.6%of patientsandwereindeterminateandsuspicious in 53.5% and 5% of cases. transient recurrent laryngeal nerve palsy was observed in only one case. transient hypocalcaemia showed up in 25 patients. incidental malignancy was determined in 15.84% of patients: one patient with medullary carcinoma, two cases with folicullar carcinoma and 13 patients with papillary carcinoma. all these cases were female and had been presented bilateral involvement of multi nodular goiter. no recurrence appeared. conclusions: we believe that, despite the higher rate of post-operative complications, total thyroidectomy will be more beneficial in the surgical treatment of benign thyroid disorders.