Complications following parotid surgery with harmonic scalpel versus cold instruments were seldom discussed. The authors retrospectively analyzed the medical record of 94 patients who received parotid surgery at Tianjin National Clinical Research Center for Cancer between January 2012 and October 2015, and compared the complications in patients operated with either Harmonic FCS9 (HF) or traditional cold instruments (CI). The mean operative time was 65.1 minutes in HF group versus 88.9 minutes for CI group. Intraoperative blood loss was 35 mL in HF group versus 55 mL in CI group. The mean drainage time was 3.7 days in HF group compared with 4.9 days in CI group. The mean total drainage volume was 62 mL in HF group versus 89 mL in CI group. The occurrence of Frey syndrome showed no difference in these 2 groups. Thus, the use of the HF in the surgical treatment of parotid disease is safe and confers advantages over conventional methods of parotid dissection.