METHODS
Our study ruled the Declaration of Helsinki regarding ethics guidelines.
The study protocol was approved by
the ’[removed for blind peer
review]’. The latter waived written informed consent because of the
retrospective nature of our study.
Our ethics committee (’[removed
for blind peer review]’) approved the waiver of informed consent for
this study.
All consecutive patients undergoing partial superficial or superficial
or subtotal or total parotidectomy between January 2015 and December
2019 were included in this study. All patients underwent preoperative
diagnosis by ultrasound or computed tomography (CT) scan. Patients were
excluded from the study for the following reasons: (1) postoperative
pathology suggests malignancy tumor; (2) previous history of radiation
therapy or operated to the head and neck region; (3) incomplete medical
records or follow-up. We collected all kinds of data including sex, age,
type of tumor, type of parotidectomy, and tumor size, specimen volume,
diabetes mellitus, hypertension, etc. The postoperative complication,
drainage, aesthetic score outcome were analyzed. All patients were
followed up for at least 6 months.
Parotidectomy was performed in the standard manner (Fig 1A, 1B). All
parotid operations were performed by 1 of 2 experienced chief physician.
The marginal mandibular of the facial nerve was first identified, and
then a retrograde dissection of the nerve was performed. The acellular
dermal matrix (ADM) used in our study was J1-ADM (Beijing Jayyalife
Biological Technology Co. Ltd., Beijing, China). The ADM size was
selected by the actual needs of operation. All patients were placed on
prophylactic antibiotics for the duration their drain was in place.
Frey’s syndrome (FS) and aesthetic score was evaluated by subjective
methods. For the subjective FS evaluation, patients were queried about
warming, flushing, or sweating over the preauricular regions during the
follow-up period. For the subjective aesthetic score was achieved by
asking patients to complete a questionnaire designed to assess their
satisfaction with the resulting scar and upper cervical and
retromandibular contour. Subjective aesthetic score was scaled from 1 to
10 (1 representing very dissatisfied; 10 representing very
satisfied).(20)
The mean and variance were used as continuous variables and n (%) were
used as categorical variables. T test was used for continuous variables
and Pearson Chi-square test or Fisher’s exact test were used for
categorical variables. P < 0.05 was considered
statistically significant. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS
22.0 for Windows.