The vagus nerve, recurrent laryngeal nerve, and external branch of the superior laryngeal nerve have unique latencies allowing for intraoperative documentation of intact neural function during thyroid surgery.

Objectives/hypothesis: To define normative amplitude and latency of vagus, recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN), and external branch of superior laryngeal nerve (EBSLN) and to apply them to postoperative neural function documentation. To our knowledge, this is the first study to report electrophysiologic characteristics of all three nerves in a consecutive patient series.

Study Design: Prospective.