Hay A, et al. - The researchers performed this analysis to describe their experience of postoperative hemorrhage in patients following transoral robotic surgery (TORS). They found surgical intervention for TORS hemorrhage in 6% patients. In patients who had ligation of the external carotid artery, no haemorrhage occurred.

Methods

• The researchers gathered data on patients having TORS.
• They graded postoperative hemorrhage within 30 days using the Mayo clinic grading system.

Results

• The researchers performed TORS operations on 122 patients.
• They identified 23 bleeding events following 19 operations (16%), which were classified as minor to severe.
• After 7 operations (6%), they encountered hemorrhage which required a return to the operating room .
• In patients that had a staged neck dissection after TORS (p=0.05), the odds of an emergent hemorrhage was 5.19 times greater.
• In patients receiving a larger resection (p=0.107), the odds of a postoperative bleeding event were 2.6 times greater.
• No hemorrhage events were recorded in the 36 patients who received a synchronous neck dissection with transcervical ligation of the external carotid artery.