CO₂ laser or dissection tonsillectomy: A systematic review and meta-analysis of clinical outcomes

Recent evidence has suggested that performing a tonsillectomy with CO₂ laser results in favorable intraoperative and postoperative outcomes. This study aimed to compare the clinical outcomes of CO₂ and dissection tonsillectomy.

We conducted a systematic search in PubMed, Scopus, and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), until the 1st of September 2021 for completed studies comparing intraoperative and postoperative outcomes of CO₂ laser and dissection tonsillectomy. Primary outcomes were operative time, intraoperative blood loss, and postoperative pain. Secondary outcomes included postoperative hemorrhage and tonsillar fossa healing. A random-effects pairwise meta-analysis of both randomized and non-randomized trials was performed. A subgroup analysis considering the randomization of trials was carried out, and sensitivity analyses linked to the quality of included papers or the age of patients were executed. Quality assessment was appraised with the Cochrane risk of bias and ROBINS-I tools for randomized and non-randomized trials, respectively.

Eight trials with 632 cases contributed data to this review. For operative time, a significant difference in favor of CO₂ laser tonsillectomy was documented (SMD = -1.32; 95% CI = -2.24 to -0.40; p < 0.005). This was also the case for intraoperative blood loss (SMD = -3.94; 95% CI = -5.62 to -2.26; p < 0.00001). For postoperative pain, no significant differences were detected on day one and seven between the intervention groups (SMD = -0.24; 95% CI = -1.11 to 0.63; p = 0.59 and SMD = 1.31; 95% CI = -0.14 to 2.75; p = 0.08, respectively). CO₂ laser tonsillectomy was not superior to conventional dissection tonsillectomy regarding postoperative bleeding rates (OR = 0.50; 95% CI = 0.10 to 2.53; p = 0.40).

This study demonstrates that CO₂ laser tonsillectomy is more likely to result in a clinically meaningful decrease in operative time and blood loss compared to the conventional dissection technique in both pediatric and adult patients. We found no significant difference in postoperative pain and bleeding. Performing further level-1 trials on this topic with a standardized and validated outcome measurement method will enable more robust conclusions to be drawn.