A huge proportion of the worldwide increase in thyroid cancer is assumed to be because of an actual increase in the prevalence of papillary thyroid cancer or the increased identification of the disease. Clinical manifestations are generally slight or absent, however occasionally patients might complain of hoarseness, difficulty in breathing or difficulty in swallowing. Surgery is the preferred treatment of choice suggested by head and neck surgeons. Often, patients who have undergone thyroidectomy have a more severe cough than those undergone other operations.

The present study was conducted to determine whether thyroidectomy is associated with self-reported cough. Patients who were undergoing unilateral thyroidectomy were prospectively enrolled in the analysis. The control group was also selected to avoid the general anaesthesia effect. The experimental group involved 300 patients (i.e., 202 women and 98 men) who underwent thyroidectomy and the control group involved 103 patients (53 women and 50 men) who underwent other head and neck operations. All patients were asked to complete the Leicester Cough Questionnaire (LCQ) preoperatively and also 2 weeks postoperatively.

In the experimental and control groups, the postoperative mean total LCQ scores were 17.9 ± 5.0 and 19.8 ± 4.2, respectively and the difference was significant (p = 0.014). Adverse event study showed that experimental group patients scored significantly worse on items such as chest or stomach pains, feeling of control in coughing, coughing bouts, phlegm, sleep disturbances, frustration, and feeling as if fed up of coughing. In the analysis of the three LCQ areas, a significant difference was observed in the physical domain between the two groups (p < 0.001).

The study concluded that thyroidectomy might be associated with postoperative cough. Also, a higher number of women patients had complained of cough and associated symptoms.

Source: Wu Y, Fang Q, Xu C, Li H. Association between postoperative cough and thyroidectomy: a prospective study. BMC Cancer. 2019 Jul 31;19(1):754. doi: 10.1186/s12885-019-5979-4. PMID: 31366389; PMCID: PMC6670143.