Adenoidectomy in a girl with haemophilia

Abstract

Haemophilia A is a sex-linked inherited disease in which those affected are usually males, and females are usually asymptomatic carriers. This paper presents a haemophilia A carrier who has a low factor VIII level first, to remind readers that females can have low factor VIII levels with consequent increased tendency to bleed; second, to stress the importance of routine questioning regarding a bleeding tendency in the patient or the patient's family and third, to illustrate the importance of pre-operative diagnosis to allow adequate correction of the defect so that surgery such as adenoidectomy can be undertaken with safety in such a patient.