{"title":"Aphonia Following Bilateral Cervical Plexus Blocks for an Awake Hemithyroidectomy: A Case Report.","authors":"Janani Gopal, Rudrashish Haldar, Sabaretnam Mayilvaganan, Anshika Dengre","doi":"10.1213/XAA.0000000000001638","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>A 35-year-old female patient was scheduled for a left hemithyroidectomy. We performed bilateral cervical plexus blocks with ultrasound guidance for an awake thyroidectomy. Soon after the blocks, she developed a weak voice, which gradually progressed to complete aphonia. Due to her apprehension, general anesthesia was administered. After an uneventful surgery, the patient spontaneously regained her normal voice in the postoperative period. The case report describes a previously unreported complication of aphonia presumably due to bilateral recurrent laryngeal nerve blocks, which might have occurred from the infiltrated local anesthetic extravasating to the deeper planes through the cervical fascia.</p>","PeriodicalId":7307,"journal":{"name":"A&A Practice","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5000,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"A&A Practice","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1213/XAA.0000000000001638","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
A 35-year-old female patient was scheduled for a left hemithyroidectomy. We performed bilateral cervical plexus blocks with ultrasound guidance for an awake thyroidectomy. Soon after the blocks, she developed a weak voice, which gradually progressed to complete aphonia. Due to her apprehension, general anesthesia was administered. After an uneventful surgery, the patient spontaneously regained her normal voice in the postoperative period. The case report describes a previously unreported complication of aphonia presumably due to bilateral recurrent laryngeal nerve blocks, which might have occurred from the infiltrated local anesthetic extravasating to the deeper planes through the cervical fascia.
期刊介绍:
A & A Case Reports, our new online journal publishing Case Reports, related Editorial Commentary, and Correspondence. Anesthesia & Analgesia 1 and Anesthesiology 2 recently announced that they were suspending publication of Case Reports. One reason is that Case Reports typically reduce the Impact Factor of a journal because they are rarely cited. Regardless of the merits of Impact Factor as a metric of journal worth, journals and their editors necessarily consider Impact Factor in strategic planning. At the same time, Case Reports are appreciated by readers for describing “real life” management of difficult or unusual cases not often encountered by practitioners. In a recent issue of Anesthesia & Analgesia, Steven Shafer1 identified many Case Reports whose publication launched productive careers dedicated to solving the puzzle posed by an unusual observation in a single patient.