[Urgent thyroidectomy for a mechanical syndrome caused by a toxic nodular goiter--a case report].

We present a case of emergency surgery of an 86-year-old patient with an extensive cevicomediastinal toxic nodular goiter. Acutely onset mechanical syndrome during hospitalization of the patient in another department for a different diagnosis (vertebrogenic algic syndrome of Th-L spine) warranted acute intubation and mechanical ventilation. After the transfer of the patient to our department, we performed total thyroidectomy.

[Incidence of carcinomas in goiters and their combination with Hashimoto's thyroiditis].

In the investigated group 300 patients were operated for a thyropathy mostly struma nodosa, tumours were proved in 69 cases; 38 of them were carcinomas of various extent and 3 of them were combined with Hashinoto's lymphomatous goitre. The overwhelming majority of the carcinomas were papillary carcinomas (22 cases). The incidence of papillary carcinoma in Hashimoto's goitre was about 8%; this fact calls for more attention to autoaggressive thyroiditis both in examination of surgical material, and during autopsies in middle-aged women, where this thyroiditis is often clinically silent.

[Personal experience with thyroid gland surgery and surgical complications].

The authors from a department with numerous thyroid gland operations present their experience and operative complications. In this department, routine dissection of the recurrent laryngeal nerve is not performed, a method of a strietly subcapsular dissection of the gland with thorough preoperative haemostasis is used. Dissection of the nerve is performed only in necessary cases.

[Total thyroidectomy as the most frequent surgical procedure on the thyroid gland].

In 1997 and 1999 at the Second Surgical Clinic 35 patients with thyroid disease were operated. The authors reflect on the increasing radicality of operations from the aspect of the endocrinologist and surgeon. Extended surgical operations in relation to the original endocrinological indications are explained by the surgical finding and results of the histological examination.

[Thyroid gland surgery--principles of surgical technique and postoperative care in our department].

Views on the surgical procedure are not uniform. The authors summarise the basic principles of surgical technique and postoperative care in thyroid surgery, as used in their department. Attention is drawn to the possibility to use epidural anaesthesia in indicated cases.