Angular cheilitis after tonsillectomy

The operation of tonsillectomy requires the oral cavity to be held open mec hanically in an unconscious patient, and intra-oral instrumentation to occu r. Angular cheilitis may arise as a result of this after operation. This ca n cause morbidity and delay the re-establishment of a normal diet. The aim of this study was to identify what factors increase the likelihood of devel oping this problem postoperatively. Sixty patients were randomly selected i n a prospective manner. Preoperative, intraoperative and postoperative vari ables were recorded. The frequency of development of postoperative angular cheilitis was recorded. The prevalence of the condition was related to the prerecorded variables. Parametric analysis showed that the chance of develo ping angular cheilitis was directly related to the use of diathermy haemost asis (P = 0.05). Logistic regression analysis showed that the odds ratio of developing this complication if diathermy was used is 3.5 (95% confidence intervals 0.99, 12.4) and operation difficulty may also be a relevant varia ble. No other recorded variables were found to be significant.