Table 1.
Number of operations for Graves’ disease of contributing institutions and corresponding complication rates.
| No. of Operations for GD/Evaluation Period | No. of Institutions n = 78 |
No. of Patients with GD n = 1808 |
Postoperative Hypoparathyroidism n = 525 |
Postoperative RLNP (per NAR) | Re-Operations Due to Bleeding |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| <10 | 38 (49%) | 155 (8.6%) | 72 (46.5%) | 15/279 (5.4%) | 1 (0.6%) |
| 11–30 | 22 (28%) | 411 (22.7%) | 143 (34.8%) | 42/772 (5.4%) | 5 (1.2%) |
| 31–50 | 7 (9%) | 280 (15.5%) | 62 (22.1%) | 26/533 (4.9%) | 3 (1.1%) |
| >51 | 11 (14%) | 962 (53.2%) | 248 (25.8%) | 55/1845 (3.0%) | 14 (1.5%) |
The influence of center volume (cut-off > 30 operations for GD during the study period of 25 months) showed a significant reduction of hypoparathyroidism (p < 0.0005) and RLNP (p = 0.0229). The rate of reoperations due to bleeding was not influenced by the center volume. GD, Graves’ disease; RLNP, recurrent laryngeal nerve palsy; NAR, nerves at risk.