Prevalence of Patients Who Return to Theatre Post-Adenoidectomy: A Review of Hospital Episode Statistics Data (2012-2019)

Introduction Risk of surgical intervention for post-adenoidectomy haemorrhage can be assessed with the analysis of the Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data. Materials and methods HES data for England from 2012 to 2019 were analysed comparing the coded number of adenoidectomy procedures to the number of surgical arrests of post-adenoidectomy haemorrhage in adolescents/adults and children. Results Between April 2012 and April 2019, of 47,597 procedures, 52 (0.11%) patients required surgical arrest of post-adenoidectomy haemorrhage. In adults (n = 5,379), 11 patients returned to theatre for control of post-operative bleeding, whereas 41 children (n = 42,218) required this intervention. The total number of adenoidectomies was 3.7 times higher in children; however, adults were statistically two times more likely to require further surgical intervention for arrest of post-adenoidectomy haemorrhage (two-tailed p-value = 0.0031). Conclusion Children are more likely to return to theatre for surgical arrest of post-adenoidectomy haemorrhage, with p-values indicating the difference between the incidence of adults and children returning to theatre to be very statistically significant.