Adenoid hypertrophy detection inventory in children for primary care physicians and pediatricians.

Abstract

Objective: Adenoid tissue consists of clusters of lymphoid tissue within the nasopharynx and can cause symptoms due to obstruction when hypertrophied. The gold standard for diagnosis is endoscopic nasopharyngoscopy, but it is not always readily available. This study aims to develop an inventory that primary care physicians and pediatricians can use to predict the degree of adenoid hypertrophy clinically, facilitating the planning of patient follow-up and treatment.

Study design: A diagnostic test study.

Settings: tertiary referral hospital.

Methods: The study involved 123 cases, with 82 in the patient group and 41 in the control group. Evaluation encompassed demographic characteristics, history, and physical examination findings. Additionally, a child psychiatrist assessed cases neurocognitively, behaviorally, and psychologically. Finally, cases underwent endoscopic nasopharyngoscopy by an ENT specialist, recording adenoid sizes and choanae narrowing. Multinomial Logistic Regression (MLR) analysis determined the most suitable model for the clinical inventory.

Results: Snoring, restless sleep, noisy breathing, recurrent throat infections, and recurrent rhinosinusitis constitute the items of the clinical inventory. The average score of relevant items categorized patients into absent and mild, moderate, and severe groups. The area under the ROC curve for average scores of the inventory was 0.67, significantly surpassing the probability of random assignment (0.17). The inventory's accuracy rate was 70%.

Conclusion: This user-friendly and highly accurate inventory aids in predicting obstruction degree in patients. Primary care physicians and pediatricians can effectively manage follow-up and treatment, referring cases requiring surgery to an ENT specialist based on the inventory results.