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Autotransplantation of the parathyroid gland was performed in 28 out of 95 patients undergoing total thyroidectomy for carcinoma. The autotransplantation was supplementary in 15 patients who kept at least one parathyroid gland in the neck and substitutive in 12 patients who had total cervical parathyroidectomy. After 1 to 30 months' follow-up none of these patients had signs of hypoparathyroidism. The incidence of permanent hypothyroidism after total thyroidectomy was reduced from 7% to 2.1%. However, autotransplantation should be considered as a means of saving any cervical parathyroid that cannot be preserved and has been shown by histopathological examination to have escaped invasion by the carcinoma.

Nineteen cases of non-recurrent inferior laryngeal nerve were identified during 3791 cervicotomies for thyroid or parathyroid excision over the last 7 years, the nervous anomaly being of vascular anomaly origin in all cases. Predisposing factors for its onset during aortic arch development are discussed, together with possible symptomatology and means for preoperative diagnosis. Frequency in the cases reported was 0,54% from 3098 dissections on the right and 0,07% from 2846 dissections on the left. Although rare on the right and exceptional on the left, an aberrant non-recurrent pathway for the inferior laryngeal nerve represents a major, surgical risk during thyroid or parathyroid excision.