Standardized evaluation of postoperative wound healing after tonsillectomy – a prospective study

Introduction:

Tonsillectomy (TE) is one of the most common ENT procedures. The most common complication is postoperative bleeding. How long the wound healing after TE lasts, affects the duration of the risk of postoperative bleeding. Only after complete wound healing there is no risk of bleeding.

Methods:

In the present study the postoperative wound healing was examinated by photos after TE.

Included were 50 patients after TE, who were older than 16 years and received tonsillectomy. Photographic documentation was performed on postoperative days 1, 3, 5, 14, 21, 28, and possibly 35.

Subsequently, the fraction of the wound surface occupied by fibrin was calculated in comparison to the total wound area with the program GIMP®.

The method and first results are presented below.

Results:

In the patients already evaluated, the wound area covered with fibrin was larger on the right than on the left side. On the left side there were longer wound coverings observed than on the right side. The proportion of fibrin-covered wound area was highest on the 1st postoperative day (on average 39.8%), decreased on the 3 rd postoperative day (28.3%), and increased again on the 5th postoperative day (30.8%). Subsequently, the proportion of fibrin covering decreased continuously until it healed. Wound coverings could be detected maximally until the 14th to the 28th postoperative day.

Conclusions:

The photo documentation with calculation of the fibrin-occupied wound surface is a possible method to evaluate standardized the postoperative wound healing after TE. The data already evaluated show that wound healing on the 28th postoperative day is not always complete.

Publication History

Publication Date:
23 April 2019 (online)