Anomalous relationship of coexisting ipsilateral recurrent and nonrecurrent inferior laryngeal nerves during thyroid surgery.

One of the most important complications of thyroid surgery is inferior laryngeal nerve injury. Variations of inferior laryngeal nerve may increase the risk of iatrogenic injury. Coexistence of ipsilateral nonrecurrent laryngeal nerve and recurrent laryngeal nerve is a very rare variation, and sufficient data are not available on the anatomical and functional relationship of the 2 branches and probable clinical outcomes resulting from the injury of one of them. Herein, we present a case with coexistence of nonrecurrent laryngeal nerve and ipsilateral recurrent laryngeal nerve and discuss the clinical importance of this rare variation.