Cautery Looked through the Lens of Clinical Perspective: Indications, Contraindications, Adverse Effects and Complications

Background: Cautery (in Arabic Kaiy) is an ancient healing practice and indicated in a variety of diseases around the world.

Objective: This review aimed to describe and synthesize the literature on clinical perspectives of cautery specifically indications, contraindications, complications and adverse consequences. Methods: Electronic searches of three databases (Pub Med, MEDLINE, Google Scholar, Ovid SP) using the Boolean operators and keywords were conducted and a number of pertinent articles (N=9256) published in scientific English literature were retrieved for extensive appraisal by two independent reviewers. Finally 84 articles were included in this narrative review.

Results: Cautery is reported to have definite indications and contraindications along with certainadverse effects and complications. The adverse consequences or complications mostly occur when cautery is used in patients with potentially complicated multiple physical diseases by unqualified and untrained traditional healers and professionals.

Conclusion: Cautery, a well-recognized complementary and alternative therapy used in many diseases is very safe in the hands of trained experienced professionals and traditional healers. Although cautery is recommended as a last choice in resistant complicated medical and surgical conditions, many patients with variegated diseases first consult traditional practitioners due to their unique culture and strong belief system and vice-versa is also factual. This study calls for conducting rigor research for assessing its outcome in prioritized medical-surgical conditions and elucidating its underlying basic mechanisms of actions and effects.