Objectives: A prospective study was undertaken to evaluate the bleeding tendency during tonsillectomy and afterward in adults and children with a history of chronic or recurrent tonsillitis. Methods: A total of 60 patients (33 female, 27 male) were scheduled for tonsillectomy under general anesthesia. The youngest was 44 months, the oldest 69 years of age (mean, 21.8; median, 18; STD, 15.6 years). Results: All tonsillectomies were performed under microscopic control. The settings of the technical devices were used as uniformly recommended. Due to the possibility of meticulous dissection, virtually no bleeding occurred during dissection. There were 6 episodes of considerable bleeding requiring surgical treatment under general anesthesia in 5 patients 4 of whom experienced secondary bleeding (>24 hours). No patient required blood transfusions. There was no case with lethal outcome. Readmission was indicated in 13 patients with posttonsillectomy hemorrhage of lesser intensity with uneventful clinical course. Conclusions: In our hands, coblation-tonsillectomy dramatically increased the rate of posttonsillectomy bleeding. The high rate of secondary bleeding contrasts sharply to our well-studied clinical experience with the conventional method (cold dissection) and the promising results recently presented in the literature. Due to the paucity of clinical reports and our scaring experience concerning coblation-tonsillectomy, we currently cannot recommend the use of this instrument. Moreover, the cost-benefit ratio dramatically suffers from the fact of high complication rates and cost for the single-use instrument (about 135 US$).