Turkish Archives of Otorhinolaryngology (Dec 2012)

Role of infection in late period post-tonsillectomy bleedings

  • Fatih Özdoğan,
  • Fazıl Emre Özkurt,
  • Talih Özdaş,
  • Muhammed Fatih Evcimik,
  • Alper Yenigün

DOI
https://doi.org/10.5152/tao.2012.19
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 50, no. 4
pp. 63 – 65

Abstract

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Objectives: Tonsillectomy is one of the most common surgical procedure which is carried out by otorhinolaryngologists. One of the complications is bleeding seen in between 0.3% and 13.9%. Bleedings in first 24 hours are defined as primary while the ones after 24 hours are defined as secondary. Primary bleedings are more likely to be associated with surgical technique and secondary bleedings are thought to be due to trauma during wound healing, solid food intake and idiopathic reasons.Methods: Two hundred and two patients who had tonsillectomy between March 2011 and November 2012 were included in the study. Patients had ear-nose-throat examination and there was no evidence of infection before the surgery. Only one surgical technique is performed by the same surgeon to all patients in the same hospital (cold knife). Complete blood count and CRP values were obtained in 11 patients who had bleeding after tonsillectomy.Results: In 202 patients who had tonsillectomy, 88 (43.5%) of them were female and 114 (56.5%) of them were male. The average of age was 7.5 (3-42). In first postoperative 24 hours, no bleeding was observed, whereas after 24 hours 11 patients presented with bleeding (5.4%). The average of the patients presenting with bleeding was 16.9 (6-33), 3 (27%) of them were female and 8 (83%) of them were male, average number of days of admission in a hospital was 10.8. Increased WBC count was not observed in 1 patient, whereas in 10 patient, WBC count was increased (p<0.05). WBC count was with neutrophil dominance in all these 10 patients. Similarly, no increase was observed in 1 patient’s CRP value, whereas other patients had significant increase in CRP values (p<0.05).Conclusion: Tonsillectomy is a frequently performed surgical procedure in otorhinolaryngology practice. Bleeding after surgery occurs due to several reasons and one of them is infection. Despite the antibiotic use after the procedure, we may encounter these complications in late period.

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