Abstract
A computerized Ovid search of MEDLINE 1966-July 2003 was performed. The terms “tonsillitis” and “pharyngitis” were exploded and cross-referenced with articles obtained by exploding “tonsillectomy”, yielding 1249 articles. These were limited to clinical trials, resulting in 79 articles which we reviewed in detail. For inclusion criteria, we required the following: 1) distinct patient populations defined as those less than 18 years old with recurrent throat infection or sore throats, 2) intervention with tonsillectomy with or without adenoidectomy or no surgery, and 3) outcome measures consisting of the number of episodes of recurrent throat infection or sore throats. The references of, these articles were then reviewed and manually cross-checked to ensure all applicable literature was included. This search strategy yielded five publications [1–6] of randomized controlled trials (RCTs), one of which was an abstract only [4] that reported on preliminary data for a later full publication. One publication contained a report of two RCTs [5] which will be discussed separately. One of these publications contained parallel reports of randomized and nonrandomized prospective trials [3]. The five RCTs identified are discussed in detail below.
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Shin, J.J., Hartnick, C.J. (2008). Pediatric Tonsillectomy. In: Shin, J.J., et al. Evidence-Based Otolaryngology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-49979-6_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-49979-6_4
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