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Successful esophageal carcinoma resection with intraoperative neuromonitoring in a patient with non-recurrent inferior laryngeal nerve

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Abstract

Right non-recurrent inferior laryngeal nerve is a rare nerve anomaly that communicates the right vagal nerve trunk to the laryngeal nerve directly in the neck, and is usually accompanied by an aberrant right subclavian artery. We report a case of thoracic esophagectomy with intraoperative neuromonitoring undertaken in a patient with these abnormalities. This case report concerns a 66-year-old man with thoracic esophageal carcinoma who was referred to our hospital. An aberrant right subclavian artery that gave us a prediction of a right non-recurrent inferior laryngeal nerve was detected preoperatively using computed tomography, and identified visually with intraoperative neuromonitoring. Identification of this nerve anomaly during cervical lymph node dissection was considered important to avoid unexpected neural injuries. For a successful esophagectomy with lymph node dissection in patients with this anomaly, intraoperative neuromonitoring for the non-recurrent inferior laryngeal nerve may provide a useful contribution to surgical safety.

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Ethical Statement

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Conflict of interest

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1964 and later versions. Informed consent or substitute for it was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Gastroenterological Surgery, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, 2-2 Yamadaoka, Suita City, 565-0871, Osaka, Japan

    Kotaro Yamashita, Hiroshi Miyata, Takashi Kanemura, Yasuhiro Miyazaki, Tomoki Makino, Tsuyoshi Takahashi, Yukinori Kurokawa, Makoto Yamasaki, Kiyokazu Nakajima, Shuji Takiguchi, Masaki Mori & Yuichiro Doki

Authors
  1. Kotaro Yamashita
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  2. Hiroshi Miyata
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  3. Takashi Kanemura
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  4. Yasuhiro Miyazaki
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  5. Tomoki Makino
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  6. Tsuyoshi Takahashi
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  7. Yukinori Kurokawa
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  8. Makoto Yamasaki
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  9. Kiyokazu Nakajima
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  11. Masaki Mori
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  12. Yuichiro Doki
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Correspondence to Hiroshi Miyata.

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Yamashita, K., Miyata, H., Kanemura, T. et al. Successful esophageal carcinoma resection with intraoperative neuromonitoring in a patient with non-recurrent inferior laryngeal nerve. Esophagus 13, 97–103 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10388-015-0493-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10388-015-0493-5

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