RESUMEN
Objective To compare complication between clamp harmonic scalpel and traditional pattern of bipolar electric knife in open thyroidectomy.Methods Patients undergoing open thyroidectomy from Jan.2009 to Dec.2010 in Thyroid Surgery Department of Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University were analyzed retrospectively.Patients fell into 2 groups according to operative pattern:633 cases in clamp harmonic scalpel group and 587 cases in bipolar electric knife group.Complications such as intraoperative and postoperative blood loss,reooperative hemostatic rate,transient or permanent recurrent laryngeal nerve palsy,transient or permanent hypocalcaemia,and infection rate were compared.Results Compared with bipolar electric knife group,intraoperative and postoperative blood loss,reoperative hemostatic rate,transient recurrent laryngeal nerve palsy and transient hypocalcaemia in clamp harmonic scalpel group were significantly lower:(21.0 ±0.7)ml vs (10.0±0.3) ml,(31.0±1.1) mlvs (12.0±1.4) ml,1.53％ vs0.47％,2.39％ vs0.95％,1.87％vs 0.63％,and 3.58％ vs 1.73％ respectively(P ＜0.05).There was no significant difference in complications of permanent hypocalcaemia,permanent recurrent laryngeal nerve palsy and infection rate for the 2 groups:0％ vs 0％,0％ vs 0％,and 0.68％ vs 0.63％ respectively ( P ＞ 0.05 ).Conclusions Compared with traditional pattern of thyroidectomy,complication rate in clamp harmonic scalpel is significantly lower.Thyroidectomy by clamp harmonic scalpel is a safer operative pattern and worth to be popularized.