Comment on “The relationship between thyroidectomy complications and body mass index”

Dear Editor,

We were lucky enough to read the study by Üstün et al.¹ in which they found that no relationship between a high BMI and thyroidectomy complications and surgery can also be performed safely in this patient group. Although the authors’ findings found no effect on postoperative complications of the thyroid gland, I would like to make some of my own points.

To begin with, the study was a cohort study, so how long was follow-up observed for the subjects, 24 hours after surgery or 48 hours? Postoperative complications of different weight types may occur at different times.

In addition, although the authors describe in Table 1 that differences in gender and age groups between the two groups are not statistically significant, the small sample size may lead to a smaller degree of certainty in the conclusions of the study. The age difference between the two groups is 5 years, and although the difference in the gender ratio between the two groups is not statistically significant, the p-value is very close to 0.05. In summary, large samples of clinical studies are still needed to make conclusions more reliable.

REFERENCE

• ¹ Üstün M, Karaca AC, Birol I, Uslu G, Atici SD, Aydin C. The relationship between thyroidectomy complications and body mass index. Rev Assoc Med Bras (1992). 2020;66(11):1573-76. https://doi.org/10.1590/1806-9282.66.11.1573
  » https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1590/1806-9282.66.11.1573

• Funding: none

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  17 Sept 2021
• Date of issue
  June 2021

History

• Received
  07 Feb 2021
• Accepted
  14 Mar 2021