Adenoids: comparison of radiological assessment methods with clinical and endoscopic findings

Methods of evaluating adenoidal size pre-operatively are controversial. Symptoms and clinical evaluation have been both advocated and condemned. Depending on the methodology, measurement of the radiological adenoidal shadow has been difficult to correlate with the clinical patency of the nasopharyngeal airway and to the actual size of the removed adenoid. Four different methods were used to measure the adenoidal size on 74 radiographs. The methods were evaluated against the degree to which the adenoids obstructed the nasopharynx on flexible endoscopy of the postnasal space. Obstructive symptomatology was also evaluated against the degree of obstruction. The radiological method that best correlated to the endoscopic findings was that of Cohen and Konak (1985). However, obstructive symptomatology had the overall highest correlation to endoscopic findings.