Artificial Nerve Conduit for Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve Reconstruction in Thyroid Surgery

Objective Oncological reconstruction of the recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN) is sometimes necessary for RLN invaded by thyroid cancer. There have been no case reports of RLN reconstruction using artificial nerve conduits, which are often used for peripheral nerves. In this study, we retrospectively evaluate the feasibility, safety, and efficacy of a collagen conduit with collagen filaments for RLN reconstruction cases at our hospital.Methods Artificial nerve conduits were used in seven cases of RLN reconstruction. Two patients had preoperative unilateral vocal cord paralysis with severe vocal cord atrophy, and two had vocal cord paresis without atrophy. The remaining three patients had functional vocal cords before surgery that had to be resected via surgery due to thyroid cancer infiltration of the RLN. Reconstruction was performed using RENERVE (R), which is a collagen conduit. Voice examination and laryngeal endoscopy were performed 1, 3, and 12 months after surgery.Results There was no improvement in the phonetics of the two patients with vocal cord atrophy before surgery. In the remaining five cases, three with functional vocal cords improved to preoperative values, and two with vocal cord paresis improved to greater than preoperative values.Conclusion We report the first case series using an artificial nerve conduit for human RLN reconstruction. In cases of RLN resection when the patient has good voice quality pre-operatively, reconstruction of the RLN using an artificial nerve may be a favorable option in cases where direct anastomosis or ansa cervicalis to RLN anastomosis cannot be performed.