COMPARISON OF COBLATION TONSILLECTOMY AND CONVENTIONAL ‘COLD’ SURGICAL TONSILLECTOMY IN PEDIATRIC PATIENTS

Material and Methods: Thirty children from 3 to 15 years of age included in this study. Tonsillectomy with coblation performed 15 of the children and conventional ‘cold’ tonsillectomy performed to the other 15. Intraoperatively length of procedure, length of anesthesia, intraoperative fluid requirement, total blood loss were documented for each patient. In the hospital, postoperative amount and duration of intravenous fluids, oral intake (timing of onset and amount), duration and total dose of analgesic were recorded. Daily assesment included type of diet, level of appetite , total number of analgesic usage, presence of fever, time to return the normal activity and pain score (twice daily). Pain was measured by means of Faces Pain Scale.

Results: In the control group where 60% of children were male the mean age was 8,13 years old; whereas, it was 7,73 years old in the study group where 46,7% of the children were male. In the study group the length of procedure, length of anesthesia, intraoperative fluid requirement, total blood loss were found statically significant. ( P<0.01) Although there were no statically difference between two groups for postoperative morning pain scores (P>0.05), there was a statically significant difference for the evening pain scores (P<0.05) except than the third postoperative day. (P>0.05)

Discussion and conclusion: In the thermal coagulation tecnique , intraoperative blood loss and the lenght of operation was statically significant when compared with control group. It offers that this method with significant reduced blood loss and surgical time and without increasing postoperative pain is a useful possibility for tonsillectomy. Keywords : Tonsillectomy, coblation, postoperative pain