Thyroidectomy is a frequently performed surgical procedure and the head and neck extension during this operation facilitates surgery. Patients may experience postoperative neck pain and range of motion (ROM) limitation due to the surgical position following thyroidectomy. We aimed to investigate the short-term effects of kinesio taping (KT), applied to the cervical spine, on neck pain, cervical ROM, and disability in patients following thyroidectomy.

This was a prospective, double-blind randomized controlled trial. A total of 80 patients were randomly assigned to applied either KT (group 1, n=40) or sham taping (group 2, n=40) using sequence of random numbers. Six patients from each group dropped out. Patients were only allowed to use paracetamol after surgery and the daily dose was recorded. Neck pain, cervical ROM, and neck disability were evaluated with VAS, inclinometer, and Neck Disability Index (NDI) questionnaire, respectively. While VAS was recorded preoperatively and 30min, 4h, 12h, 24h, and 7 days after surgery, ROM and NDI was recorded preoperatively and 24h after surgery.

The mean ages of the group 1 and group 2 were 51.6 and 49.2 years, respectively. There were no significant differences with respect to age, gender and educational background and body mass index. The demographic data of the two groups are presented in Table 1. The improvement in VAS values was more significant in favor of group 1 (P=0.032) (Fig. 1). There were no significant differences with respect to improvement of ROM values and NDI values between groups during study (Table 2). Patients in group 1 needed less paracetamol during study than patients in group 2 (P=0.011).

Our results revealed that cervical KT reduced postoperative neck pain and pain medication consumption. KT can be use as an alternative treatment for neck pain relieving after thyroidectomy.