Codeine use post-tonsillectomy could be fatal.Byline: ANI London, Aug 20 (ANI): The use of codeine codeine (kō`dēn), alkaloid found in opium. It is a narcotic whose effects, though less potent, resemble those of morphine. An effective cough suppressant, it is mainly used in cough medicines. Like other narcotics, codeine is addictive. to treat pain following a tonsillectomy tonsillectomy /ton·sil·lec·to·my/ (ton?si-lek´tah-me) excision of a tonsil. ton·sil·lec·to·my n. Surgical removal of tonsils or a tonsil. could prove fatal for some children, a new report has warned. Dr. Gideon Koren from The University of Western Ontario Western is one of Canada's leading universities, ranked #1 in the Globe and Mail University Report Card 2005 for overall quality of education.[2] It ranked #3 among medical-doctoral level universities according to Maclean's Magazine 2005 University Rankings. investigated the death of a two-year-old boy following a relatively easy operation to remove his tonsils tonsils, name commonly referring to the palatine tonsils, two ovoid masses of lymphoid tissue situated on either side of the throat at the back of the tongue. . Enlarged tonsils are usually treated with antibiotics, but Koren says tonsillectomies are still performed in the case of sleep apnea, where the child stops breathing while asleep. In this case, the toddler had a history of snoring and sleep-study-confirmed sleep apnea. He was taken to an outpatient clinic, had the operation, and was taken home. The mother was given syrup of codeine and instructed how to administer it to her child for pain relief. On the second night after surgery, the child developed a fever and wheezing Wheezing Definition Wheezing is a high-pitched whistling sound associated with labored breathing. Description Wheezing occurs when a child or adult tries to breathe deeply through air passages that are narrowed or filled with mucus as a , and was found dead the next morning. Tests later showed the mother had given the proper dosage, and yet the child's body was found to have high levels of morphine. The coroner asked Koren to look at the case. "The sudden death of a healthy child was quite sobering because tonsillectomies are done every day, all over North America. And more and more of them are done on an outpatient basis, with the child going home the same day," Koren said. The child was found to have the ultra-rapid metabolism genotype, which causes the body to metabolize codeine at a faster rate, producing significantly higher amounts of morphine. Koren has another concern about giving codeine to children after a tonsillectomy for sleep apnea. "If the apnea doesn't go away, codeine will also suppress the child's breathing. This demonstrates the need to keep children in hospital under surveillance for at least 24 hours to see if the apnea persists," Koren said. The report has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine The New England Journal of Medicine (New Engl J Med or NEJM) is an English-language peer-reviewed medical journal published by the Massachusetts Medical Society. It is one of the most popular and widely-read peer-reviewed general medical journals in the world. . (ANI) Copyright 2009 Asian News International The Asian News International (ANI) agency provides multimedia news to China and 50 bureaus in India. It covers virtually all of South Asia since its foundation and presently claims, on its official website, to be the leading South Asia-wide news agency. (ANI) - All Rights Reserved. Provided by Syndigate.info an Albawaba.com company |
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