**5. Patients and methods**

50 patients (30 males, 20 females) were studied. 28(56%) had adenotonsillectomy, while 22(44%) had only tonsillectomy alone. The data was obtained by the author from three centres:University of Ilorin teaching hospital, Kwara state, IBB specialized hospital Minna, Niger state and Federal medical centre, Azare, Bauchi state.

35(70%) of the surgeries were performed using cold surgical dissection technique, while 15(30%) were done using bipolar electrocautry. All the surgeries were performed by one of two experienced surgeons. All the children were kept overnight; some were discharged the following day after they can tolerate liquid diet. Routine antibiotics and analgesics were given to all the patients.

For the 28 patients who had adenotonsillectomy, the mean operating time for the 8 bipolar electrocautries was 42.0 minutes and 47.2 minutes for the 20 cold dissection patients.

For the 22 patients who had tonsillectomy alone, the mean operating time was 31.4 minutes for the 7 bipolar electrocautries, while 34.2 minutes for the 15 cold dissections.

Complication of hemorrhage were seen in 3(6.0%) of all the patients, 2(66.7) were in cold dissection group and 1(33.3%) in bipolar electrocautry group.
