Why the study?
Post-surgical bleeding occurs in 2-7 per cent of tonsillectomies, but whether heart rate and haematocrit changes are associated with the amount of bleeding remains unclear.
Does heart rate change correlate with haemoglobin and haematocrit changes in children with post-tonsillectomy bleeding?
Does heart rate change correlate with haemoglobin and haematocrit changes in children with post-tonsillectomy bleeding?
Monitoring heart rate alone is insufficient to predict acute blood loss in pediatric patients after tonsillectomy.
May support vital sign monitoring for bleeding assessment in children; leaves open prospective validation before practice change.
OBJECTIVE: Post-surgical bleeding after tonsillectomy occurs in 2-7 per cent of cases. This study examined whether heart rate and haematocrit changes are associated with the amount of bleeding. METHOD: In this retrospective analytical study, data were collected from the medical charts of patients admitted with post-surgical bleeding. RESULTS: Over the course of 10 years, there were 218 cases of post-operative bleeding in children aged under 18 years. There was a significant increase in heart rate after the bleeding had started, and a significant decrease in both haemoglobin and haematocrit levels (p < 0.05). There was no significant correlation between the differences in haemoglobin and haematocrit and changes in heart rate. CONCLUSION: No correlation was found between the differences in haemoglobin and haematocrit levels and the changes in heart rate from before the surgery to after the bleeding had started. The monitoring of paediatric patients' heart rate after tonsillectomy surgery solely for the purpose of predicting acute blood loss is therefore discouraged.
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Ronen et al. (2020) studied this question.
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