Tonsillectomy is probably the commonest surgery performed by the ENT Surgeon. There are various indications for tonsillectomy.
The commonest would be recurrent tonsillitis.
Tonsillitis causes:
- Severe throat pain, with high fever
- Lethargy
- Difficulty eating
- Swallowing.
This requires a course of antibiotics up to 2 weeks per episode.
Individuals with recurrent tonsillitis can have such infections as frequent as once per month. There are various recommendations on how frequent the infection should be before we recommend the surgery.
However, you can imagine that it really depends on the individual's lifestyle and work commitments.
Some guidelines recommend infections of more than 6 time a year before we consider surgery.
For some, having a 2 week disruption even 3 - 4 times a year is too disruptive to their work/ studies and they may consider the surgery.
Other indications for performing tonsillectomy are as follows:
1) As part of the surgery to increase airway for treating sleep apnoea.
2) When there are reasons to suspect cancer (eg, enlarged tonsil of only one side, non healing ulcer on tonsil) and tissue is required for confirmation.
3) Repeated Quinsy (a more severe form of infection compared to tonsillitis where pus develops and patient can be in danger of airway obstruction due to the pus and swelling. In this case, the threshold to recommend surgery is lower than for tonsillitis).
4) Tonsoliths (bacteria and food debris trapped in tonsils) causing bad breath.
