Comparison of Ultrasonic Dissector versus Conventional Surgery in Thyroidectomy

Abstract

Objective: To compare the results of ultrasonic dissector or conventional-surgery in terms of
shorter operative time, hospital study and average drain output and to evaluate the incidence of
postoperative complications.
Methods: A prospective randomized trial was conducted at surgical Unit-II of Services Hospital,
Lahore. Duration of study was two years. After approval from ethical committee 100 patients with
thyroid disease were included. These patients were divided in Ultrasonic Dissector (UD) group &
Conventional Surgery (CS) group (50 each). In UD group patients were under went
thyroidectomy with use of harmonic scalpel while in CS group patients were operated with suture
ligations of vessels along with use of monopolar or bipolar cautery. All the data was collected on
self designed proforma & SPSS 20 version was used for data analysis.
Results: The mean age of patients was 30 ±17 with dominant female gender. In UD group the
mean operative time was 50.4 ± 7.41 minutes which was significantly lower than in CS group
which was 88.6±3.89 min. Drain output was 23.9±15 ml & 33.7 ±30.2 ml in UD and CS group
respectively with p- value of 0.024. P-Value was significant (<0.000) for hospital stay. Most
common complication was parathyroid injury (12% cases in UD group & 16.0% in CS group).
Hematoma & seroma formation was noted in 12% in each group.
Conclusions: We concluded that the use of Ultrasonic Dissector significantly decreases
operative time compare to Conventional Surgery techniques. It is also safer in terms of reducing
the incidence of postoperative complications.
Keywords: ultrasonic dissector, conventional surgery and thyroidectomy.