Mortality after thyroid surgery

What this data shows:

Mortality is the most serious adverse post-operative event, and the primary outcome reported by other national audits

How the data is gathered:

The reported mortality rate relates to deaths occurring at any time during the index admission.

Mortality after thyroid surgery is more usually related to the underlying disease process e.g. advanced cancers, or to unexpected events such as heart attacks, than to direct surgical complications.

When the data is shown:

The mortality rate after thyroid surgery is very low indeed, and there are no ideal statistical methods to compare such low rates between surgeons. Individual cases where in-hospital death has been reported are reviewed, to ensure that no issues of the quality of care contributed to the death in question.

More information about the data source:

Data are only available for those surgeons who are members of the British Association of Endocrine and Thyroid Surgeons (BAETS), and who submitted data to the audit over the relevant time period. Data are self-reported and have not been independently verified against other data sources.

Data Source:

UK Register of Endocrine and Thyroid Surgeons, operated by the BAETS and Dendrite Clinical Systems Ltd.

Data Period:

Cases operated upon between 1st of July 2012 and 30th of June 2016 inclusive

Data Supplier:

British Association of Endocrine and Thyroid Surgeons and Dendrite Clinical Systems Ltd.