Does topical lidocaine with adrenaline have an effect on morbidity in pediatric tonsillectomy?

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of lidocaine with adrenaline on post-operative morbidity in pediatric patients after tonsillectomy. Study Design: A double blind prospective randomized controlled clinical study. Methods: The study is consisting of two groups of pediatric patients following tonsillectomy performed in a university hospital. One group received lidocaine with adrenaline soaked swabs packed in their tonsillar fossae white the control group received saline-soaked swabs. Chi-square and two-tailed unpaired Student's t-tests were used to compare the two independent groups. p < 0.05 was accepted as statistically significant. Results: No significant pain-relieving effect was seen in the lidocaine with adrenaline group (p > 0.05) and also the other post-operative parameters such as nausea, fever, vomiting, odor, bleeding, otalgia and trismus were not statistically different between the two groups based on chi-square analysis (p > 0.05). There were no complications associated with lidocaine and adrenaline. Conclusion: We suggest that application of topical lidocaine with adrenaline seems to be a safe and easy medication for local anesthetic use. However, in our study, lidocaine with adrenaline offered no advantage over placebo in the control of post-operative pain and other morbidity related factors following pediatric tonsillectomy. We therefore do not recommend topical application of lidocaine with adrenaline for reducing morbidity in pediatric tonsil surgery.