Antibiotic use in tonsillectomies: therapeutic or prophylactic? Required or excessive?

Adenotonsillectomy is one of the most commonly performed surgeries in the pediatric and young adult populations. The postoperative morbidity of this surgical procedure is often significant, including odynophagia, dysphagia, fever, halitosis, loss of weight and reduced oral intake. After tonsillectomy, with or without adenoidectomy, the colonization of the open tonsillar fossae by the bacterial population of the oral cavity would cause an exacerbation of the local inflammatory response worsening postoperative pain.