Making sense out of the tonsillectomy literature.

Background: With the increase in new technology and changing indications for tonsillectomy, the literature has exploded during the last 20 years with scores of publications reporting the relative effectiveness of many different techniques. Despite this "wealth of information," no single technique has been adopted by most surgeons.

Objectives: To systematically analyze the usefulness of this literature of the past 20 years concerning tonsillectomy technique in children.