Evaluating Perioperative Dexamethasone and the Risk of Bleeding in Tonsillectomy
Status:
Completed
Trial end date:
2011-11-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Tonsillectomy (removal of the tonsils) is a very common surgery in children. Bleeding after
tonsillectomy is one of the risks of this surgery and can be more dangerous in children since
they have less blood volume than adults. In order to improve recovery after tonsillectomy,
steroids (medication that is a strong anti-inflammatory) are often given during the surgery.
Recently, a study showed steroids given at the time of tonsillectomy increase the risk of
bleeding significantly over children who did not receive steroids. This finding has raised
concerns in the Ear, Nose, and Throat (ENT) community since most ENT's use steroids during
tonsillectomy in children. The investigators look to explore this question further.
To answer the question of whether perioperative steroid administration significantly affects
the rate of post-tonsillectomy bleeding, the investigators propose to test the following
hypotheses in a prospective, randomized, blinded placebo-controlled trial: dexamethasone does
not cause an increase in post-operative bleeding rate in tonsillectomy.