Routine Electrocardiography Request in Adenoidectomy: Is it necessary?

To evaluate the relevance of routine electrocardiographic request in pre-operative work-up of children undergoing adenoidectomy. This is a two year prospective study of children with obstructive adenoid that had adenoidectomy. This is a tertiary hospital based study at the Otorhinolaryngology Department of University College Hospital, Ibadan. Children (≤12 years) with clinical and radiological evidence of an obstructive adenoid were investigated. Information obtained with an interviewer assisted questionnaire included the biodata, clinical presentation of the patients, ECG findings, echocardiographic findings, cardiothoracic ratio, palatal airway and ratio of adenoid diameter to the nasopharyngeal diameter. The adenoid volume was measured after adenoidectomy. The results were analyzed using SPSS version 14 and level of statistical significance was P < 0.05. There were seventy four patients; 45 (60.8%) males and 29 (39.2%) females with a mean age of 38.35 months, S.D ± 30.32 (range 5–144 months). All the patients presented with mouth breathing and recurrent mucopurulent rhinorrhea. Mild snoring was detected in 18 (25%) patients, moderate snoring in 39 (54.17%) patients and severe snoring in 15 (20.83%) patients. Mild apnea was observed in 55 (74.32%) patients and moderate in 19 (25.68%) patients. Only seven (9.46%) patients had abnormal electrocardiographic findings but their ejection fraction on echocardiography ranged from 63 to 72% with a mean value of 68.17%, S.D ± 3.22. Cardiac complications of enlarged obstructive adenoid appear not to be common. Routine preoperative electrocardiography should therefore be restricted to only the high risk patients.