(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Asthma is the most common cause of hospitalization for children, and now, a new study finds a common surgery may help asthmatic children. The research finds removing tonsils and adenoids leads to improvement of the lower airways of children, especially those with bronchial asthma.

Asthma or reactive airway disease is a chronic inflammatory disease that causes hypersensitivity of the airways. Asthma attacks can have a great impact on the quality of life of a child including missed days of school and frequent use of medications. Researchers from Yale University in New Haven, Conn., conducted a study to see if removing tonsils and adenoids would lead to improvements for children with asthma.

Thirty-eight children who had asthma and underwent an adenoidectomy or tonsillectomy within the last five years were included in the study. The child’s caregiver answered questions before surgery and after surgery about medication use, missed school days, and severity of the child’s asthma.

Study authors report clear improvements of asthma symptoms for patients who had an adenotonsillectomy (adenoidectomy and tonsillectomy) preformed. They found medication use dropped after the surgery and the severity of the asthma decreased as well. The study also reports the number of missed school days in a year decreased from about eight days to three days, and the number of missed work days for parents decreased from seven days in a year to two days.

Researchers acknowledge this was a small number of patients in their study. But, they say even with a small number the study revealed significant improvements of asthma symptoms for patients who had their adenoids and/or tonsils removed.

SOURCE: 20th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Pediatric Otolaryngology in Las Vegas, May 27-30, 2005