Patients with tonsil problems at NMCTH--a report

The study was carried out in the Department of Otorhinolaryngology NMCTH (n = 20, age 3-54yrs) who presented tonsil problems and underwent tonsillectomy over period of 1 year (2006-2007). Patients who underwent tonsillectomy were selected for study throughout preoperative and two months of postoperative period. Out of 20 patients (8 male andl2 female) 3 patients presented with sleep apnoea syndrome, 8 patients required hospitalization due to odynophagia and high fever and 9 of them suffered from recurrent tonsillitis. Post operative period was uneventful. The commonest presentation was recurrent sore throat and commonest organism isolated on throat swab culture (superficial) was S. aureus (26.0%). Sixty-nine percentage of culture was sterile, most probably because of prior antibiotics use. Only one out of twenty cultures showed a haemolytic streptococcus. According to previous studies carried out, organism obtained from superficial swab may be different from that of from core and there were some differences between children and adults. a haemolytic streptococci was the commonest organism (38.0%) isolated from surface.