Post Tonsillectomy Haemorrhage, Results of 3 months follow up.

Abstract

To ascertain the number of episodes of post operative haemorrhage that required surgical treatment treatment under general anaesthesia. This study was conducted at the Department of ENT, LRH from January 2002 to March 2003 over a period of 14 months. five hundred patients, age 6 years to 60 years (mean 16 years) who had undergone as inpatient tonsillectomy and who had been hospitalized for at least 3 days. In all 14(2.8%) patients had experienced post tonsillectomy bleeding that required surgically achieved hemostasis under general anaesthesia. nine (64.2%) patients had experienced reactionary haemorrhage and were treated under general anaesthesia. Five (35.8%) patients experienced secondary haemorrahge - one one patient in this later group had excessive bleeding on 25th days post operatively which we velieved is the latest episode of secondary bleeding reported to date.  We conclude that a follow up period of 10 days appears to provides sufficeint time to evaluate the incidence of post tonsillectomy to provide sufficeint time to evaluate the incidence of post tonsillectomy haemorrhage.