Outpatient tonsillectomy safe for most children
Key points
- Kids who need their tonsils removed can be in and out of the hospital on the same day, in many cases, Spanish doctors report.
- Jose Granell and colleagues at the "12 de Octubre" Hospital in Madrid reviewed the charts of 1243 children up to age 14 who underwent tonsillectomy as outpatients between 1995 and 2000.
- There were no restrictions on which children could undergo the outpatient procedure according to age, weight, the reasons for the surgery, whether the tonsils were causing obstruction, or the presence of sleep apnea, the team explains in the medical journal Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery.
- Complications occurred in 116 children, and discharge from the hospital was delayed for 103 of them.
Kids who need their tonsils removed can be in and out of the hospital on the same day, in many cases, Spanish doctors report.
Dr. Jose Granell and colleagues at the "12 de Octubre" Hospital in Madrid reviewed the charts of 1243 children up to age 14 who underwent tonsillectomy as outpatients between 1995 and 2000.
There were no restrictions on which children could undergo the outpatient procedure according to age, weight, the reasons for the surgery, whether the tonsils were causing obstruction, or the presence of sleep apnea, the team explains in the medical journal Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery.
Complications occurred in 116 children, and discharge from the hospital was delayed for 103 of them. Major bleeding requiring return to the operating room occurred in 36.
There were complications in 13 patients once they were home, with a re-admission rate of 1 percent.
"Our data support the statement that outpatient tonsillectomy in children is a safe procedure, even with permissive inclusion criteria, when an appropriate setting is available," Granell and his associates conclude.
SOURCE: Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, October 2004.
Written and revised by
Gerald Hurowitz, M.D.
Our doctors write and review articles for accuracy and keep them up to date.
health.am provides general information, not medical advice. Always consult a qualified health professional about your own health.
Explore health topics
More in this topic
Children's Health →
NewsHigh sugar consumption among children relates to poor family functioning, study finds
The quality of general family functioning is a major determinant of healthy dietary habits - according to new research published in the Journal of Caries Research and led by Queen Mary University of London. The East…
23 August 2015
NewsNew diagnostic tools for dehydration severity in children
Dehydration from diarrhea, either from viral infection or cholera, accounts for 10 percent of all child deaths worldwide. Though it's a pervasive problem, there are no clinical guidelines that perform better than chance…
22 August 2015
NewsWhat clinicians need to know about bilingual development in children
Bilingual children pose unique challenges for clinicians, and, until recently, there was little research on young bilinguals to guide clinical practice. In the past decade, however, research on bilingual development has…
