Pre-Operative Electrocardiographic Patterns of Children Who Had Adenotonsillectomy at University of Benin Teaching Hospital, Nigeria

Abstract

Adenotonsillitis is a relatively common condition among children attending Paediatric Otorhinolaryngology clinics. It is sometimes associated with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) which can predispose to certain cardiac changes detectable by electrocardiography (ECG). We studied the preoperative electrocardiographic patterns of children surgically managed for adenotonsillitis in our hospital. This was a one-year retrospective study of children who had adenotonsillectomy at University of Benin Teaching Hospital, Benin-City, Nigeria between January and December 2017. Data was extracted from patients’ case files including sociodemographic parameters, clinical features and electrocardiographic profiles. These were analyzed using SPSS version 22.0. A total of 63 children were studied comprising 40 males (63.5%) and 23 females (36.5%) with a maleto-female (M:F) ratio of 1.74:1. Their ages ranged from 11 months to 192 months with mean age of 53.5±35.9 months. The modal age group of 3 to 4 years comprised 26 children (41.3%). The main presenting complaints were snoring in 58 (92.1%), mouth-breathing in 56 (88.9%), noisy breathing in 52 (82.5%) and OSA in 45 (71.4%). The duration of symptoms ranged from 5 to 96 months. Abnormal ECG was detected in 32 children (50.8%) with the common patterns being T wave abnormalities (9.5%), sinus arrhythmias (7.9%), incomplete bundle branch block (7.9%) and right ventricular hypertrophy (4.8%). There was statistically significant association between presence of OSA and abnormal ECG (p=0.043) among the children. We conclude that ECG abnormalities are relatively common among children with obstructive sleep apnoea due to adenotonsillar hypertrophy in Benin-City, Nigeria.