The recovery progress in peritonsillar abscess by incision and drainage treatment

Abstract Objectives: Peritonsillar abscess (PTA) is a common disease but its symptoms are sometimes severe. The surgical treatment for PTA varies in the literature: needle aspiration, incision and drainage, and quincy tonsillectomy. We mainly performed incision and drainage for PTA. The retrospective study was performed to investigate the recovery progress and to solve the questions: Which incision and drainage treatment is effective? What is the recurrence level of PTA? Methods: We performed the retrospective study for 211 PTA inpatients in Kitasato University Hospital Department of Otolaryngology between 1998 and 2002 to investigate the recovery progress in PTA. Furthermore we compared our experience with another evidence. Results: Gender distribution was 163 male and 48 female. Average age was 34 years old. One hundred six cases underwent incision and drainage and another 55 cases underwent needle aspiration. Quincy tonsillectomy was not performed. Administration period was 6 to 8 days in most of cases. WBC and CRP change in recovery progress showed no significant difference between treatments. Conclusion: Our experience found, especially incision and drainage treatment, effective for PTA. But no difference was found among 3 surgical treatments compared with another evidence. PTA patients need low influence treatment for their recovery so that we have to investigate and discuss the best treatment for PTA.