COBLATION TONSILLECTOMY, IS IT SUPERIOR TO COLD STEEL METHOD?

Introduction: elsus was the first person to recognize tonsillar disease and its relationship to infection performing the first tonsillectomy in 40 A.D1 . The tide turned in the 1980s, when Paradise et al demonstrated that surgery significantly improved patient outcome compared with medical therapy2 . Chronic tonsillitis is one of the most common and frequent illness within otolaryngology. Tonsillectomy is also one of the most frequently performed surgical procedure3 . Improvements in the procedure of tonsillectomy which are many should have the advantage of decreasing the operating time, reduction in the intraoperative and postoperative blood loss, and reduction in postoperative morbidity namely pain. Coblation is a new technique that was started in 1975. It involves passing a radiofrequency bipolar electrical current through a medium of normal saline resulting in a plasma field of highly CCoblation tonsillectomy, is it superior to cold steel method? Haider S Hashim, Ahmed M Al-Abbasi & Sabah Al-Urabi Bas J Surg,June, 27, 2021 42 ionized particles, which in turn break down intercellular bonds and thus melt tissue at around 40º to 70ºC (in comparison with electrocautery which cuts tissues at 400º C)4 . This study was carried out to evaluate the benefit of coblation tonsillectomy over conventional (cold steel) tonsillectomy, comparing tonsillectomy duration, blood loss during surgery, and the postoperative pain. Patients and methods This is prospective, randomized, singleblinded clinical trial included 90 patients. Forty five randomly selected patients underwent coblation tonsillectomy (Group A), the later 45 patients underwent cold steel tonsillectomy (Group B). The study was carried out in Al-Musawy Private Hospital, Basrah Teaching Hospital and Al-Shifaa Hospital, Basra, Iraq in the period between February 2018 to August 2020. The risk was mentioned to all the patients. Some of them refused to take part in the study, but all those who were included accepted the possibility of risk and gave their permission. All of the included patients have recurrent acute tonsillitis above 3 years of age. All patients with unilateral or asymmetrically enlarged tonsils, those who need adenoidectomy, or additional procedure like myringotomy, and those with bleeding tendency, were excluded. All adult patients have paracetamol tab. 500mg thrice daily and 20mg/kg for children for 7 days. Figure 1: Coblation machine and probe. Tonsillectomy operation duration was calculated as the time interval between the first application of coblator probe (Figure 1) or first incision, to the time when all bleeding and oozing was secured completely. The operative blood loss was calculated by weighing the blood impregnated gauze packs against an equal number of unused packs as well by measuring the volume of blood for each group separately. The volume of blood in the packs was calculated by dividing the weight of blood on the pack by the specific gravity of blood (1.055) 5 . Patient's follow-up was performed at operative day (after recovery), 1st, 3rd, 7th postoperative days in regard to pain. Pain assessment was done using the numeric pain rating scale for adult and Wong baker faces scale for children (age 3 years and older), both scores from 0-10 (record from day 0,3,7,14), until returned to normal diet and activity. The “Wong baker faces” pain scale is a visual analogue scale that uses faces rather a line to identify the level of pain or discomfort that the child is experiencing. The children were asked by themselves or by the assistance of parents to point the “face” that best expresses the way that they feel. The results of the study were statistically analyzed by using paired t-test for significance