Patient-reported voice and swallowing outcomes and their impact on quality of life in the late postoperative period following total thyroidectomy.
Lívia Lima do Nascimento Silva, Vivian Lisboa de Lucena, Ana Flávia de Sales Cândido and 3 others
PMID 42561306WHAT IT FOUND
Women 6+ months after total thyroidectomy still report significant voice and swallowing symptoms, with fatigue and mental health the most affected quality-of-life areas.
Voice symptoms dominate over swallowing. These patients may need ongoing SLP assessment well past the typical recovery window.
Key findings
01Vocal symptoms contributed the largest proportion (48.98%) to the total TVSQ score, predominating over swallowing and cervical-thoracic symptoms.
02The median total TVSQ score was 26 on a 0-to-80 scale, with the two highest individual scores (49 and 48) belonging to participants who also had neck dissection.
03Among quality-of-life domains, fatigue scored highest, followed by emotional aspects, anxiety, cognitive problems, and depression.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Only 17 participants, all biological females, from a single hospital — results cannot be generalised to men, to other surgical contexts, or to other populations. No instrumental voice or swallowing tests were performed; findings rest entirely on self-report questionnaires. Descriptive statistics only; no inferential analysis, no comparison group, and no control for confounders. Time since surgery ranged widely (2004–2022), and surgical techniques and care protocols changed over that period, introducing a confounding factor the authors acknowledge. Possible selection bias: patients were recruited from the hospital's own SLP department records and from those attending appointments, which may over-represent symptomatic individuals. The TVSQ Brazilian-Portuguese version does not yet have defined clinical cutoffs, so scores cannot be interpreted against established thresholds.
Declared interests
No financial support or conflicts of interest declared.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as evidence that a specific post-thyroidectomy management protocol is effective or ineffective. The study is purely descriptive, with 17 all-female participants from a single hospital, no instrumental voice or swallowing tests, no comparison group, and no inferential analysis. It documents that symptoms are present in this small group, not that any particular intervention helps or harms, and the all-female, single-centre sample limits what can be concluded for any broader patient population.