Coblation Tonsillectomy versus Dissection Tonsillectomy: A Comparative Study and our Experience in Tertiary Care Centre

The objective of this study was to compare theintraoperative time, intraoperative blood loss and post operative pain between coblation tonsillectomy and cold tonsillectomy in the same patient. A prospective study was carried out on 34 patients whom underwent tonsillectomy. The patients with known bleeding disorder, history of unilateral peritonsillar abscess and unilateral tonsillar hypertrophy were excluded. Operations were done by a single surgeon using cold dissection tonsillectomy on one side while coblation tonsillectomy on the other. Intraoperative time, intraoperative blood loss and post operative pain during the first 3 days were compared between the two methods. Results showed that the intraoperative time was significantly shorter (pless than0.001) and intraoperative blood loss was significantly lesser (pless than0.001) in coblation tonsillectomy as compared to cold tonsillectomy. Post operative pain score was significantly less at 6 hours post operation (pless than0.001) in coblationtonsillectomy as compared to cold tonsillectomy. However, there were no differences in the post operative pain scores on day 1, 2 and 3. In conclusion, coblation tonsillectomy does have superiority in improving intraoperative efficiency in terms of intraoperative time and bleeding compared to cold dissection tonsillectomy. The patient will benefit withminimal post operative pain in the immediate post surgery duration. However the probe used for coblation surgery is disposable and costly which makes it less choice by most of patients at government set-up (hospitals).