Vessel Sealing Device in Parotid Gland Surgery: Clinical and Pathological Study

Facial palsy, salivary leakage and postoperative bleeding are the main complications in parotid gland surgery. To find ways to reduce the occurrence of these complications, we compare traditional methods using the hand-tie ligation technique with a bipolar electrode knife against LigaSureTM Small Jaw, a newly developed vessel sealing device, in parotid gland operations. Eighteen parotid gland tumour cases were retrospectively evaluated. All patients were treated in the University of Tsukuba Hospital, Ibaraki, Japan between January, 2011 and October, 2012. The patient groups were randomly allocated. Surgery was performed in eight cases with LigaSureTM Small Jaw, and ten consecutive cases were done with the conventional dissection technique. The clinical records and histopathological findings were reviewed for each group. In this study we could not find any difference between the two groups in clinical issues. However, difference in histological damage was revealed at the cut edges of the connective tissue, nerve and salivary gland, i.e., less damage to the nerve was observed in the LigaSureTM Small Jaw group. These findings indicated that LigaSureTM Small Jaw was a safe and useful device for parotid gland surgery.