Ghansham, Sagheer Hussain Shah, Zeeshan Hyder.
Incision Pain: a Comparison Between Use of Diathermy Versus Scalpel in patients Undergoing Elective Abdominal Surgery.
J Surg Pak Jan ;21(2):54-7.

Objective: To compare the mean postoperative wound pain score in diathermy (cutting) versus scalpel made skin incisions in patients undergoing elective abdominal surgery. Study design: Randomized clinical trial. Place & Duration of study: Department of Surgery Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center Karachi, From February 2015 to August 2015. Methodology: Patients who underwent clean elective abdominal surgery were randomly assigned into either group A (diathermy incision) or group B (scalpel incision). Antibiotic prophylaxis was given at the time of induction of anesthesia. Postoperatively 20ml bupivacaine (0.25%) was infiltrated into the wound and regular dose of diclofenac sodium was given. Patients were assessed for pain by numerical analogue scale at the end of 48 hours after surgery. Results: A total of 60 patients were included. They were divided into group A and B with 30 patients in each group. Mean postoperative wound pain score was significantly low in group A than groups B (1.30±0.98 vs. 1.97±0.81; p=0.0006). Conclusion: Cutting diathermy is safe and effective method to make skin incision in elective abdominal surgeries and has significant advantage over scalpel skin incision in relation to postoperative pain.

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