Postoperative drainage in head and neck surgery
Autor: | Ida Amir, Antonio Belloso, Pradeep Morar |
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Jazyk: | angličtina |
Rok vydání: | 2010 |
Předmět: |
Adult
Male medicine.medical_specialty medicine.medical_treatment Surgical drains Drainage rate Young Adult Suction drain medicine Humans Parotid Gland Postoperative Period Prospective Studies Drainage Prospective cohort study Aged Aged 80 and over Postoperative Care business.industry Thyroidectomy ENT surgery Neck dissection General Medicine Length of Stay Middle Aged Surgery Head and Neck Neoplasms Anesthesia Head and neck surgery Female business |
Popis: | INTRODUCTION A major factor affecting patients’ length of hospitalisation following head and neck surgery remains the use of surgical drains. The optimal time to remove these drains has not been well defined. A routine practice is to measure the drainage every 24 h and remove the drain when daily drainage falls below 25 ml. This study aims to determine whether drainage measurement at shorter intervals decreases the time to drain removal and hence the length of in-patient stays. PATIENTS AND METHODS A 6-month prospective observational study was performed. The inclusion criteria were patients who underwent head and neck surgery without neck dissection and had a closed suction drain inserted. Drainage rates were measured at 8-hourly intervals. Drains were removed when drainage-rate was ≤ 1 ml/h over an 8-h period. RESULTS A total of 43 patients were evaluated. The highest drainage rate occurred in the first 8 postoperative hours and decreased significantly in the subsequent hours. The median drainage rates at 8, 16, 24, 32 and 40 postoperative hours were 3.375, 1, 0, 0 and 0 ml/h, respectively. Applying our new removal criteria of ≤ 1 ml/h drainage rate, the drains were removed in 22 (51%) patients at the 16th postoperative hour; 37 (86%) were removed by 24 h after operation. In comparison, only nine (20.9%) patients could potentially be discharged the day after surgery if previous criteria of ≤ 25 ml/24-h were used to decide on drain removal. CONCLUSIONS Our 8-hourly drainage-rate monitoring has facilitated safe earlier discharge of an additional 28 (65%) patients on the day after surgery. This has led to improvement in patient care, better optimisation of hospital resources and resulted in positive economic implications to the department. |
Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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