88% of UK kids who got tonsillectomies did not actually need them – Quartz

Every year, hundreds of young children in the United Kingdom are getting surgery that they do not need.

That's the conclusion of a study recently published in the British Journal of General Practice, conducted by a group of researchers at the University of Birmingham. The study found that, between 2005 and 2016, 88.3% of the kids who got tonsillectomies in the UK did not meet the medical threshold for the procedure, and were unlikely to benefit from it.

Tonsillectomies are not risk-free

Under the age of 20 years, the American Academy of Otolaryngology and other major medical associations recommend that they only get tonsillectomies if they are at least seven years old, at least five years in the past two years, or at least three years in each of the previous three years. But most children have tonsillectomies in the UK in recent years.

The University of Birmingham 1.6 million children from more than 700 UK general practices within the country's Health Improvement Network (THIN) between 2005 and 2016. Out of 18,271 children who had their tonsils removed during that period, only 2,144 (11.7%) had enough surgery.

That's because of the tonsillectomies for children are commonplace-the surgery comes with risks of complications. According to a case study, the 2.7% of children who receive tonsillectomies are readmitted within 30 days, and 12.4% go to an emergency department. A 2014 review in Pediatrics shown that 7.8% of children who undergo tonsillectomies in the US at the hospital with complications within 30 days. And another study showed the most common causes of readmission were excessive bleeding, acute pain, fever, vomiting, and dehydration.

Even when kids qualify for the procedure, parents may want to consider a strategy of "watchful waiting," according to Nicholas Balakar in The New York Times. That's because, while tonsillectomy can be beneficial to those who are severely affected, a recent study has shown that it is more likely to be associated with the disease.

The risks of unnecessary surgeries for kids

Tragic, uncommon goal, boxes, like the death of 13-year-old Jahi McMath following a tonsillectomy in 2013, have highlighted the importance of ensuring that they surgeries they actually need. According to Pacific Standard Magazine, "each year in America, thousands of children and

In the UK, for example, the National Health Service (NHS) performed about 37,000 tonsillectomies from April 2016 to March 2017, at a cost of £ 42 million.

An analysis of the medical history of the Birmingham study is accurate, but clarified that the medical statistics are not always reflect the reasons why it is possible that it is possible boxes.

Tom Marshall, a study author and professor of public health at the University of Birmingham, says it is more likely that his team overestimated rather than underestimated the number of children who have had surgery before, since they used a broad definition of what constitutes tonsillitis. , gold sore throat caused by infected tonsils. However, even after conducting the analysis with a strict definition of a throat throat, the researchers found that it was "still true that the great majority of children with their throats did not have their tones removed," according to Marshall.

The Birmingham also noted that, among UK children who DID meet the criteria for tonsillectomies and had seven or more severe throats within a year, only 14% actually received the surgery. Marshall says this makes him wonder if "children can be harmed by a tonsillectomy."

"We found that even among severely affected children only a tiny minority of their tonsils out," he said. "It makes you wonder if tonsillectomy [is] ever really essential in any child. "