Publication:

Role of vitamin D as a risk factor in post-thyroidectomy transient hypocalcemia: a prospective study

Background With increase in the number of thyroidectomies, the incidence of post-operative hypocalcaemia has seen a rise as well. Deficiency of vitamin D has long been debated as a risk factor for post thyroidectomy hypocalcaemia. The advantage of using vitamin D as a predictor for post-operative hypocalcaemia is (i) easy to estimate (ii) any deficiency can be easily corrected.

Methods A prospective study with total of sixty one patients who underwent total thyroidectomy irrespective of the pathology. Serum calcium and vitamin D were investigated preoperatively. Serum calcium was repeated in post-operative period. The association between vitamin D and hypocalcaemia was evaluated using Fischer’s exact test.

Results Hypocalcaemia was seen in 14.28% of patients with lower vitamin D levels. When Fischer’s exact test was applied, two tailed ‘p’ value is 0.5195, which is not statistically significant.

Conclusions Though vitamin D estimation can be an easy method in predicting post thyroidectomy hypocalcaemia, our study does not indicate the same.