Post-operative impaired vocal cord mobility related to cardiovascular surgery: a study to the characteristics of cardiovascular surgery induced impairment of the vocal cords mobility

Abstract

Background: injury to the recurrent laryngeal nerve during cardio-thoracic surgery is a well described phenomenon with an incidence of 1-2%, but is overlooked as a complication during admission. It may lead to an impaired mobility of the vocal cords and cause physical complaints like hoarseness, dyspnoea or aspiration and have a negative influence on the patient’s quality of life.

Aim: the present study investigates impaired vocal cord mobility as a complication after cardiovascular surgery among 23 patients in a large non-academic hospital in the Netherlands. The study aims at determining whether there are any significant relationships between otorhinolaryngology data of the vocal cord impairment, general risk-factors and surgical characteristics of cardiovascular surgery.

Results: no significant relationships have been found. However, certain variables in the dataset did occur significantly more often than others.

Conclusions: general risk-factors or characteristics of cardiovascular surgery were not found to be statistically related to uni-/ bilaterality, side and severity of mobility impairment, position of the impaired vocal cord, and spontaneous recovery in this study. However, analysis of the dataset shows that impaired vocal cord mobility after cardiovascular surgery occurs significantly more frequently unilaterally than bilaterally, and significantly more frequently in patients who underwent open thorax surgery than in those who underwent a minimal invasive surgical procedure. Further research is required to determine potential risk-factors for a post-operative impaired vocal cord mobility.