[Post-tonsillectomy hemorrhage in adults. A retrospective study and literature review]

We are reporting a review of 21 adults admitted with diagnosis of post-tonsillectomy hemorrhage between 1992 and 2001 (10 years). 14 were male and 7 female with 29 years-old average. We have studied the number of days from intervention to hemorrhage beginning, bleeding location, urgent analysis, the medical or surgical treatment that was performed and clinical evolution. A 85.7% were late bleeding (5th day or afterwards) being two times more frequent on the left fossae. It was required a hemostasia under general anestesia in 57.14% of the cases and the incidence of bleeding post-tonsillectomy has been estimated in 5.8% respect to global surgery of that kind.