RELATION OF ABSENCE OF TONSILS TO BULBAR POLIOMYELITIS

Data have been provided over a period of years to suggest that mere absence of tonsils and adenoids, regardless of the time of their removal, leads to increased susceptibility to bulbar poliomyelitis. In a study of 432 patients with acute anterior poliomyelitis, Lucchesi and LaBoccetta¹ found that in 61% of patients whose tonsils were absent at the time the infection occurred the bulbospinal form of the disease developed while in 76% the bulbar type developed. A much higher incidence of bulbar involvement took place in these persons than in patients who still had tonsils and adenoids, the difference being apparent in all age groups. Seventy-eight per cent of the patients who died of poliomyelitis had neither tonsils nor adenoids when they became ill.

In 1952, Top² investigated 1,947 patients who had been admitted to the Herman Kiefer Hospital in Detroit over a 10 year period because of poliomyelitis.