Treatment
Adenoidectomy
is frequently advocated for children having nasal airway obstruction with or without recurrent ear or sinus infections. The role of adenoids in OME is controversial. Gates postulates that effusion may be the result from eustachian tube (ET) obstruction secondary to enlarged adenoids.[41b] In a randomized, prospective, controlled study of 103 children with OME 2 to 11 years old found that adenoidectomy improved the resolution of chronic MEE 26% in 6 weeks and 42% in one year, but the effusion was still present despite adenoidectomy in 28% of the children after one year.[79] He found no significant benefit from tonsillectomy. Certainly if a child requires a second set of tubes, it is important to consider removing the adenoids. If the child has nasal congestion and middle ear disease then there are ONLY two possibilities: The nose is stuffy from adenoids obstructing the back of the nose - and closing off the eustachian tube or the child has allergies - or BOTH!! It is imperative to find out and treat BOTH the allergies AND remove the adenoids.