Ethical implications of COVID-19 management-is freedom a desired aim, or a desired means to an end?

Most developed societies managed, due to their prosperity and resource abundance, to structure relationships among free individuals in such a way to leave them fundamentally unstructured, according to the free market principle. As the pandemic illustrated well, this lack of structure when facing collective threats makes it impossible to collectively and proportionately assess and manage its implications and consequences. This may be particularly precarious when introducing comprehensive, monitoring and tracking, surveillance systems dependent on the vaccination status of the individual.

Assessing Symptomatic Hypocalcemia Risk After Total Thyroidectomy: A Prospective Study.

 The most common postoperative complication of total thyroidectomy is hypocalcemia, usually monitored using serum parathyroid hormone and calcium values.  To identify the most accurate predictors of hypocalcemia, construct a risk assesment algorithm and analyze the impact of using several calcium correction formulas in practice.  A prospective, single-center, non-randomized longitudinal cohort study on 205 patients undergoing total thyroidectomy.

Thyroidectomy-related Swallowing Difficulties: Review of the Literature.

This study aims to provide insight into the etiology and frequency of swallowing complications that arise after thyroidectomy and to outline the available diagnostic procedures by revising the existing literature on this topic. We conducted a bibliographic search using the electronic database MEDLINE/PubMed to identify all relevant articles and 44 studies were included in the review out of a total of 218 published articles. Dysphagia after thyroid surgery is a common postoperative complication which, in the short- or long-term, significantly affects patient life quality.

Identifying early postoperative serum parathyroid hormone levels as predictors of hypocalcaemia after total thyroidectomy: A prospective non-randomized study.

Objective: There is no clear cut-off value of serum parathyroid hormone (PTH) or calcium in which patients are at risk for hypocalcemia after total thyroidectomy. We evaluated the usefulness of serum calcium and PTH concentration measurements after total thyroidectomy in predicting late-occurring hypocalcemia.

Design: A prospective, single-center, non-randomized longitudinal cohort study of 143 patients undergoing thyroidectomy between August 2019 and December 2019 with serum calcium and PTH levels sampled 1 h after surgery and on the first and fifth postoperative day.