Post-Operative Complications of Tonsillectomy between Dissection and Diathermy Method at a Tertiary Care Hospital

Objective: To compare post-operative complication after dissection and diathermy tonsillectomy. Methodology: A Cross-sectional comparative analysis was conducted from August 2018 to July 2019 on a sample of 206 patients undergoing tonsillectomy at the Department of ENT, Liaquat University of Medical & Health Sciences, Jamshoro. Patients between age of 6-18 years of age undergoing tonsillectomy due to chronic recurrent tonsillitis and obstructive hyperplasia of tonsils of either gender were included. Patients were divided in two groups, group A (dissection tonsillectomy) and group B (diathermy tonsillectomy). Data on demographic variables and complications, including hemorrhage, uvular edema, and blood aspiration, were collected. Patients were followed for two weeks to monitor complications. All information was recorded on self-structured questionnaires and analyzed using SPSS version 20. Results: A total of 206 patients were studied, with a mean age of 12.02 ± 4.12 years. Males were the majority (65.05%). Dissection tonsillectomy had a significantly higher risk of primary hemorrhage (42.9%) compared to diathermy (6.1%) (p = 0.047), while secondary hemorrhage occurred equally in both groups (18.36%). Post-operative pain was significantly higher in the diathermy group (5.6 ± 2.64) than in the dissection group (3.2 ± 2.33) (p = 0.047). Overall hemorrhage was more frequent in dissection tonsillectomy (35.0%) than diathermy (12.6%) (p = 0.001). Other complications, including uvular edema and blood aspiration, showed no significant differences between the two techniques. Conclusion: The comparative analysis of the study revealed that the diathermy tonsillectomy linked to the significantly higher post-operative pain; it has a lower risk of hemorrhage, with no statistically significant differences in the incidence of uvular edema and blood aspiration between the two techniques.