Incidence of unexpected pathology in routine adenoidectomy specimens

Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the incidence of unexpected pathologies in adenoidectomy specimens and necessity for histopathologic evaluation of adenoid tissue. Materials and methods: All patients younger than 16 years who underwent routine adenoidectomy were reviewed. Patients were excluded if the primary surgery was other than routine adenoidectomy such as nasopharyngeal biopsy for suspicion of malignancy or other pathology. Results: One thousand one hundred eighty-four patients (683 mates, 501 females) were involved in this study. The mean age was 7.53 +/- 3.24 years, ranging between 2 and 16 years. There was no patient with unexpected pathology among 1184 routine and primary adenoidectomy procedures. However, one patient had unexpected pathology among 33 revision adenoidectomy procedures (3%). Conclusions: There was no occult pathology in routine primary adenoidectomy. The incidence of unexpected pathology in revision adenoidectomy was 3%. Microscopic evaluation of adenoid tissue gives some knowledge about histological properties and rarely some unexpected pathologies. Searching for malignancy is unnecessary in routine primary adenoidectomy cases without any other clinical, radiological and laboratory findings. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.