Patients and Data
After an approval by our institution’s review board, a retrospective
study of all patients above 18 years of age who underwent parotidectomy
(including total, superficial or partial parotidectomy) at our
department between 2016 and 2020 was performed.
Prior to November 2019 all patients were drained following parotid
surgery. From November 2019 onwards a shift in practice has been made
and all patients were treated with Evicel (Evicel Airless Spray
Accessory, Omrix Biopharmaceuticals Ltd, Ethicon Inc, Somerville, NJ) FS
without drainage regardless of the extent of parotid surgery. No other
changes were made in the procedure, instrumentation or surgical
technique. The extent of surgery was determined at the surgeon’s
discretion, based on the tumor’s location, cytology, size, etc.
The FS group included all patients in whom an Evicel FS was placed in
the surgical bed at the end of the operation and a drain was not
inserted. The control group included patients in whom a drain (BIOVAC
closed wound drainage system, Biometrix, Jerusalem, Israel) was inserted
at the end of the operation. The control group patients were matched
(eliminating significant difference) for age, sex, body mass index
(BMI), surgery type, tumor type and size (see below) with the FS group
patients. Exclusion criteria included patients with missing pertinent
data, patients who underwent neck dissection in addition to parotid
surgery, patients with a history of neck irradiation and patients in
whom both drainage and FS were used at the end of the surgery.