• Posted March 20, 2025

Tonsil Removal Helps Kids With Snoring/Sleep Apnea

Removing the tonsils and adenoids can improve the sleep of kids with mild breathing problems that disturb their slumber, a new clinical trial reports.

Children with sleep problems needed to see a doctor 32% less often and had a 48% reduction in medication use after surgical removal of their tonsils and adenoids (adenotonsillectomy), researchers reported in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.

The results mean that “for every 100 children, 125 encounters and 253 prescriptions can be avoided in the first year following surgery,” senior researcher Dr. Susan Redline, a professor of sleep medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said in a news release.

As many as 17% of kids in the U.S. experience sleep-disordered breathing, in which snoring or full-blown sleep apnea causes them to wake repeatedly in the night, according to information cited in the news release.

Taking out enlarged tonsils is standard treatment for moderate to severe cases, but the practice hadn’t been tested in kids with mild sleep-disturbed breathing.

For this study, researchers analyzed data from a clinical trial involving 459 children with mild sleep-disordered breathing who were followed for a year. The kids were 3 to 12 and being treated at seven academic sleep centers across the U.S.

During the trial, half the children had their tonsils and adenoids removed while the other half received supportive care without surgery that included education on healthy sleep habits and referrals for allergies or asthma.

A year later, the kids who’d had their tonsils and adenoids removed were less likely to visit the doctor or take meds to help their sleep, results show.

“The reduction in the rates of both total encounters and total prescriptions associated with surgery was more pronounced among children older than 5 years than among children 5 years and younger,” researchers noted in their study.

Exactly how removal of the tonsils and adenoids may improve mild sleep-disordered breathing is not fully understood yet, researchers note. In addition, more research is needed to prove the cost-effectiveness of adenotonsillectomy compared with other care.

More information

The Cleveland Clinic has more on tonsil removal.

SOURCES: Mass General Brigham, news release, March 17, 2025; JAMA Pediatrics, study, March 17, 2025