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IJE Advance Access originally published online on January 9, 2008
International Journal of Epidemiology 2008 37(1):23-25; doi:10.1093/ije/dym259
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Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Epidemiological Association © The Author 2008; all rights reserved.

Commentary: Tonsillectomy—then and now

Martin J Burton

Department of Otolaryngology—Head & Neck Surgery, University of Oxford, Level LG1, West Wing, John Radcliffe Hospital, Headley Way, Oxford, OX3 9DU, UK.

E-mail: mburton@cochrane-ent.org

Accepted 13 November 2007

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Dr Alison Glover's article reminds us—if we need reminding—that tonsillectomy has long been a controversial operation.1 It remains so today and recently, when calls were made in the UK to ‘stop doing unnecessary operations’, tonsillectomy was quickly cited as one of these. In 1936, Alison Glover clearly thought that many tonsillectomies being undertaken were unnecessary. Both then and now, this lack of necessity presumably refers to the belief that patients are no better off after tonsillectomy than they would have been had they not had the surgery. The wide variation in rates of tonsillectomy between and within countries seen 70 years ago, continues to the present day.2

It is difficult to work out from Dr Alison Glover's article what the contemporary indications for tonsillectomy were. Mention is made several times of ‘enlargement’ and of sore throats and colds. When I rescued the 1937 edition of St Clair Thomson's classic ENT . . . [Full Text of this Article]


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