A New Retrospective Study Shows PuraBond Benefits in Adult Tonsillectomy

Tonsillectomy is one of the most common surgical procedures and accounts for 17% of elective workload. Despite it forming a large part of early surgical training amongst juniors, primary and secondary bleed rates carry significant morbidity and mortality. The national GIRFT study identified an adult tonsillectomy readmission rate of 18.4% with bleeding readmissions at 13.0%. 

In the new clinical study “Intra-Operative PuraBond Haemostats: A Comparative Trial in Adult Tonsillectomy” by Michaels J. et al. presented at BACO, The British Academic Conference of Otolaryngology (2023), the authors evaluated PuraBond's efficacy in reducing secondary haemorrhage and readmission for post-operative pain.  
In the evaluation, 164 adult tonsillectomy cases were analysed and compared with a trial study of 21 adult tonsillectomies with intra-operative PuraBond (applied at the end of the procedure to the bed of the lesion). 

Results were as follows: 

• Readmission rate:

• • 18.9% for untreated cohort (77.4% readmissions for bleeding and the remaining secondary to pain).  
  • 4.8% for the PuraBond cohort (due to bleeding) with no patients requiring a return to theatre. 

• Secondary haemorrhage was seen in 14.6% of patients without PuraBond and 4.8% of patients with PuraBond application.

This study demonstrates the benefit of PuraBond as a means of reducing secondary haemorrhage and readmission for pain relief in adults undergoing tonsillectomyⁱ. Further studies are required to strengthen this data with additional analysis of post-operative pain between cohorts. 

For application within ENT, PuraBond is indicated for:  

• Bleeding from small blood vessels and oozing from capillaries of the parenchyma and surrounding tissues of solid organs.  
  
  
• Oozing from vascular anastomoses to native or artificial vessels, on the surface of blood vessels and surrounding tissues.  

PuraBond allows more than 95% effectiveness in sustaining haemostasis without 
additional treatment in the first 24 hours following ENT procedure.

 Click here to read the full poster. 

i The publication: [Michaels J., Patel N., Kaleva A., Bateman L., Wakelam O., Stephens J. (2023) “Intra-Operative PuraBond Haemostats: A Comparative Trial in Adult Tonsillectomy” Poster presented at BACO, The British Academic Conference of Otolaryngology, February 14-17] also describes procedures and contains data which are currently not within the indication of PuraBond. It concerns within, the prevention of secondary haemorrhage (within 1-30 days after surgery) which is not covered by the current indication of PuraBond.