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Postoperative Pain Following Coblation or Monopolar Electrocautery Tonsillectomy in Children: A Prospective, Single-Blinded, Randomized Comparison
Clinical Otolaryngology, 08/22/2011
Parker NP et al. - Coblation tonsillectomy may reduce post-operative pain and the time until resumption of a regular diet compared to electrocautery tonsillectomy.
Methods- A parallel designed, prospective, single-blinded, randomized trial.
- Ambulatory surgical facility.
- Eighty otherwise healthy pediatric patients undergoing coblation or electrocautery tonsillectomy by a fellowship trained pediatric otolaryngologist.
- The number of postoperative days with severe pain based on subjective qualification by the caretaker.
- Postoperative days with pain rated greater than or equal to 5 on a scale of 1 to 10.
- Postoperative days requiring oral paracetamol/acetaminophen with codeine solution.
- And postoperative days until resumption of a regular diet were assessed and recorded daily using a post-operative pain survey as a form of daily diary that was returned at the 2-week follow-up visit.
- Patients were consecutively enrolled into 2 groups of 40 patients.
- Average ages were 5.2 years for coblation tonsillectomy and 6.0 years for electrocautery tonsillectomy.
- The average number of postoperative days with severe pain was 4.2 for coblation and 5.9 for electrocautery (p=0.006), days rating pain greater than or equal to 5 were 3.6 for coblation and 4.8 for electrocautery (p=0.037), days of codeine use were 2.5 for coblation and 2.9 for electrocautery (p=0.324), and days until resumption of a regular diet were 5.2 for coblation and 6.2 for electrocautery (0.329).
