Intraoperative Ketorolac and Posttonsillectomy Bleeding

Abstract
To determine the occurrence of posttonsillectomy bleeding in patients who received intraoperative ketorolac tromethamine. Retrospective analysis. Academic tertiary care center. Three hundred eleven patients who underwent tonsillectomy in an 18-month period. Occurrence of bleeding complications in patients who received ketorolac during tonsillectomy. Fifty-eight of 311 patients who underwent tonsillectomy received intraoperative ketorolac with an overall postoperative bleeding rate of 17%. This high rate of bleeding complications compares with 4.4% in the remaining 253 patients who received traditional opioid analgesics. Until further controlled studies have been conducted, the use of ketorolac in patients undergoing tonsillectomy should be avoided because of the increased incidence of postoperative bleeding complications.

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