Objective: Even though pathologies of palatine tonsils are common, the mechanisms leading to these pathologies are not clearly understood. The main objective of this study is to investigate the effect of fibroblast growth factor receptor-1 (FGFR1) on tonsillar hypertrophy.

Material and Method: Children who underwent total tonsillectomy were included in the study. Subjective tonsil size, tonsil weight and volume were measured for all patients. The tonsil samples were than homogenized and their FGFR1 concentrations were measured with enzyme- linked immunoassay (ELISA) method. The correlations between tonsil measurements and FGFR1 concentrations were analyzed.

Results: 59 patients were included in the study. Tonsil size and weight was found to be positively correlated to the patient age. No significant correlation was found between subjective tonsil size and objective tonsil measurements. The FGFR1 concentration of the tonsil tissue showed significant negative correlation with the tonsil volume (r:-0.22, p: 0.04) and weight (r:-0.28, p: 0.01). Subjective tonsil size showed no correlation with the FGFR1 concentration.

Conclusion: There is a negative correlation between tonsil size and tonsillar FGFR1 concentration. This finding might indicate that FGFR1 plays a role in the mechanisms which determine the tonsil size.

Palatine tonsil Adenoids Hypertrophy Fibroblast growth factors Inflammation